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SPINOZA

BE^TEDICTUS DE, SPIKOZA

Cui natura,,De\is,reru:ni cui cog-niius ordo,
Hoc Spinola ftatu cojifpiciendus erat

lixpi-eflere viri faciein,fecl ping-ere mentcm
Z^uxidis artifices , non valuere tnanus .

Ilia viget Tcriptis : illic ruLiimia tractat:
Huncc^iucunquccupis nofcere,fcripta leg-e .

x, feenea !& tas de.

SPINOZA

HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY

FREDERICK POLLOCK

BARRISTER-AT-LAW : LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND
HONORARY DOCTOR OF LAWS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

' Weltseele, komm, tins zu durcJidrlngen !
Dann mit dem Weltgeist seftst zit ringen,

Wird unsrer Krdfte Hochberuf.
Theilnehmend fiihren gute Geister,
Gelinde leitend, hochste Meister,
Zu dem, der alles schafft -und sckuf

GOETHE : Eins und Alles.

499035

LONDON
C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1880

rights of lm,,.,':alhn a,,J of reproduction m

TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FRIEND

WILLIAM KINGDOM CLIFFORD

HOMO LIBER

DE NULLA RE MINUS

QUAM DE MORTE COGITAT

CONTENTS.

[NOTF.— Throughout this Table and the Index the abbreviation Sp. is
used for Spinoza, except where it might be ambiguous^

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE

Preliminary . xv

Sp.'s Works : original publications .

Editions . .... xvii

Translations . . xix

Authorities for Sp.'s life .

Portraits of Sp. ... xxv|

Early literature relating to Sp. • • XXV11

English books

Modern accounts of Sp.'s philosophy

Special monographs . . .

CHAPTER I.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.

Birth of Sp l

The Jewish Settlement at Amsterdam

Their leaders : Manasseh ben Israel

Uriel da Costa

State of Jewish education IO

Sp.'s training in youth : Van den Ende Il

Story of Clara van den Ende *3

. Difficulties with the synagogue

Attempt on Sp.'s life : excommunication 17

Change of name : lawsuit with sisters 2O

Changes of residence

Friendship and correspondence with Simon de Vries

Friendship with Oldenburg • • • • 25

viii CONTENTS.

PAGE

Correspondence as to publication of his works 26

The ' Principles of Descartes' Philosophy ' published . . . . 30
The ' Tractatus Theologico-politicus ' published . . . .31

Controversy, and prohibition of the book 33

Invitation to Heidelberg declined 34

French invasion of 1672 : Sp.'s visit to Condd's quarters . . . 36

Plan of publishing ' Ethics ' abandoned 38

Death of Sp 39

Publication of ' Opera Posthuma ' 40

Sp.'s manner of life 41

CHAPTER II.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE.

Letters not strictly philosophical the subject of this chapter . . 44

/ Sp. questioned by Blyenbergh on origin of evil 46

\ His reply, and further correspondence 47

Reason and Scripture 50

— Anthropomorphism of theology 53

Close of the correspondence ... . . . 56

Letter to Peter Balling on omens 56

Anonymous correspondent on ghosts . . . . . • • 59

Sp. on perfections of divine nature ....... 63

Letter on an alchemical experiment 64

Reply to Van Velthuysen's criticism on ' Tractatus Theologico-
politicus ' 65

— Sp.'s general view of religion . . . . . . . . . 69

Later correspondence with Van Velthuysen as to publication . . 70

Correspondence and acquaintance with Leibnitz 71

With Tschirnhausen 73

Letter from Albert Burgh on his conversion to Church of Rome . . 75

Sp.'s answer jj

CHAPTER III. >/

IDEAS AND SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY.

Part L — Judaism and Neo-Platonism.

Philosophy must renounce finality 80

Ideas permanent, not systems 83

Leading ideas of Sp. : uniformity (pantheism) 84

Identity of body and mind (monism) 85

Self-preserving effort (natural law) . . 86

CONTENTS.

General view of sources of these ideas ...... 87

Uniformity : the Essay on God and Man ...... 89

Not Cartesian in metaphysics ........ 9°

Sp.'s metaphysics developed from theology ...... 92

Jewish theologico-philosophical authors ...... 93

Maimonides ....... ..... 94

Chasdai Creskas .......... 95

Alleged influence of Kabbalah on Sp ........ 97

Possible allusions to it in Sp. . . . 100

Giordano Bruno and Avicebron ........ 102

Points of resemblance in Bruno and Sp. . . . 104

Part II.— Descartes.

Influence on Sp. most important in physics ...... 107

Sp.'s ' things immediately produced by God ' ..... 108

Motion and Rest treated as things ....... 109

Descartes' axiom of conservation of quantity of motion . . .no

His consequent errors . . . . 1 1 1

Aim of his physical speculations ....... 112

Sp.'s criticism of Descartes ......... JI4

Derivation of principle of self-conservation from Descartes . .116

Sp.'s gradual divergence from Descartes in psychology . . . n8

CHAPTER

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD.

Sp.'s treatise ' De Intellects Emendatione ' . .121

Search for the Chief Good .

Contrast with Descartes' object

The good to be aimed at

Knowledge and its degrees .... .126

The test of truth .....

Double use of idea by Sp ......

Reflective knowledge .

Problems of method stated

Fiction and error ......

Sp.'s conception of truth ......... !39

Sp.'s 'most perfect being' ... . . 141

Doubt and imagination . .... 143

Discipline of the reason • • J45

Theory of definition .... ... 146

Sp.'s definition includes explanation ....... T47

' Eternal things '

Identified with 'infinite modes ' of Ethics . . . . . 152

x . CONTENTS.

CHAPTER (VT)

THE NATURE OF THINGS.

PAGE

State of philosophical ideas and terms in Sp.'s time . . .156
Sp.'s geometrical method . . . . . . . 157

Definitions of Ethics, Part I . . . . . . .159

Sp.'s causa sui and conception of Cause ...... 160

Substance ............ 162

Attributes ............ 163

Modes ............ 165

Infinity of Attributes .......... 166

Parallelism of Attributes ......... 168

Difficulties of Sp.'s theory ......... 171

Implicit idealism of the system . . . . . . .175

Kant's approximation . . . . . . . . . . 176

Summary ............ 17%

Sp. on infinity ........... xyo,

On notions of time, measure, and number ..... 181

Sp.'s « aids of the imagination ' not Kantian ...... 185

Note on the Infinite Modes ........ 187

CHAPTER

BODY AND MIND.

The doubleness of experience ........ 189

Subject and Object, Mind and Matter ...... 190

Theories of relation between Mind and Matter ..... 192

Sp.'s account ........... IC;^

Complexity of human mind ..... .... 195

Doctrine of association ......... I0,6

Confused knowledge and error ........ 198

Universals ....... 2OO

Degrees of knowledge ....... • . 2oi

Sp.'s determinism ......... 202

No distinct faculties of mind ........ 205

Will and judgment ...... 2O5

Automatism of body ....... 207

Advantages of necessarianism according to Sp ..... 210

No distinct theory of perception in Sp. ... 212

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER y

THE NATURE OF MAN.

I'AGE

Preface to Part 3 of Ethics . . . 214
Self-preservation ... .... 216

Sp.'s use of conatus . . . . 218

What is a thing t ... 219

Self-preservation and desire . . . 221

Self-preservation as incident to life . ' . . . 222

Pleasure and pain . . • 224

Love, hatred, &c. . • • 226

Extension of emotions by sympathy . . . 228

Active emotions . ... 230

The definitions of the emotions . 233

CHAPTER Vllly

THE BURDEN OF MAN.

Introduction to Part 4 of Ethics . ... 245

Remarks on the argument from design ... . 246

Perfection and imperfection, good and evil . . . 250

Emotion controllable only by emoticn . . 252

The life according to reason . . . . 253

Agreement of Sp. with the Stoics . . . 255

Development of ethical doctrine . . . 257

Virtue as intelligence ... . . . 258

Element of common-sense morality in Sp. . ... 260

Society and law .261

What things are useful . . . 262

Enjoyment of life . • 264

Returning good for evil . . 265

Some passions relatively good . 266

The reasonable or free man . . . 268

Sp.'s appendix of maxims . • 271

CHAPTER(IX)

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN.

The power of reason .278

Criticism of Descartes' physical theory of will . . 279

Division of Part 5 of Ethics . . . 280

The government of the passions . . 283

xii CONTENTS.

PAGE

• The use of moral precepts 285

—The love of God 287

* The eternity of the mind 288

Aristotelian and Averroist doctrines of immortality : Gersonides . 289

Sp.'s argument 292

Discussion of his meaning ........ 295

The mind's knowledge ' under the form of eternity ' . . . . 296

— The * intellectual love of God ' 300

Return to physical aspect : concurrent development of body and

mind ............ 303

Morality independent of eternity of mind . . . . . . 305

Virtue its own reward , 306

Conclusion of the Ethics 308

CHAPTER X.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE.

Sp. as publicist belongs to English school 3IO

Relation to Hobbes ~12

Theory of sovereignty as compared with Hobbes . . . -jjr

Sovereignty never absolute ..... oi*-

Special revelations not to hold against law 319

Review of ' Tractatus Politicus ' ~2I

Scientific treatment of subject ,2-

General ideas ....... ,21-

' Natural right ' ,

The State and its power ,2g

Can the State do wrong ? „

Ideal of government .

Ideal of special forms of government : Monarchy ... 333
Aristocracy .......

Federal government

Democracy ...... --,(,

The treatise broken off

CHAPTER • Xj)

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY.

~ Theology and philosophy .
._- Sp.'s personal position .

- Criticism of theological doctrines in Ethics, Part i ': necessity of ^

God's action
Things could not have been otherwise .

* * 3 I ^T

CONTENTS. xiii

PAGE

s Deity and moral law .... ... 346

Final causes . . 348

God as conceived by Sp. . . ... 352

The 'infinite understanding' 353

Personality .... ... 354

Sp.'s pantheism . . . . . . . . . • • 355

Sp. on historical revelations ... .... 357

The voice from Sinai 360

Revelation in general .361

Religion and morality . . 363

Sp. on pre-eminence of Christ 365

Sp.'s letters to Oldenburg on the Resurrection 366

Religion as guide of life for the unlearned 368

CHAPTER XII.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT.

Nature of Sp.'s influence 373

Early controversy in Netherlands 375

Spinozistic heresies in the Reformed Church : van Hattem and

Leenhof 376

Cartesian opposition ; attitude of Leibnitz 379

Slight notice by English philosophers . ..... , . . 381

English theological criticism ... . 383

French writers on Sp 386

Voltaire ... 387

Boulainvilliers 388

Montesquieu's knowledge of Sp 389

Lessing's vindication of Sp 390

Conversation with Jacobi 391

Goethe ... 394

Later recogition of Sp. in Germany 397

Post-Kantian philosophers ......... 397

Study of Sp. in England : Coleridge 400

Shelley's intended translation 403

Later English criticism ......... 404

Study of Sp. in France . . . 405

Bicentenary commemoration in Holland 405

CONTENTS.

APPENDIX A.

PAGE

The Life of Spinoza by Colerus 409

APPENDIX B.

Ordinance of July 19, 1674, condemning the * Tractatus Theologico-

politicus ' • • 444

APPENDIX C.

1. Dutch originals of certain letters of Sp. ... . 44^

2. Unpublished letter of Sp. to Dr. Meyer (in V. Cousin's library) . 447

APPENDIX D.
Circular of the Spinoza Committee .... 45 l

APPENDIX E.

Table showing Sp.'s position in the history of Philosophy 456

INDEX .... 457

Erratum.

Page 45, note i, the first essendi should be existcndi

INTRODUCTION.

THE purpose of this book is to put before English readers an
account, fairly complete in itself and on a fairly adequate
scale, of the life and philosophy of Spinoza. It aims, in the
first instance, at being understood by those who have not
made a special study of the subject ; but I hope that it may
also be not useless to some who already know Spinoza at first
hand, and even to critical students of philosophy. In order
to reconcile these objects as far as possible, I have thought it
well to collect once for all in this introductory chapter a
certain amount of critical and bibliographical matter, which
the reader who is interested in it will thus find ready to his
hand, while the less curious may with equal ease pass it over.
I propose here, not to enter at large on the bibliography and
literature of Spinoza, but to give sufficient indications to any
one who desires to go further on his own account. This will
involve some partial repetition of matters elsewhere touched
upon in the course of the book. But I prefer repetition to
obscurity.

First let me premise that a most useful, one may indeed
say an indispensable, companion to anything like a critical
study of Spinoza is Dr. A. van der Linde's Benedictus Spinoza :
Bibliografie (the Hague, 1871). This is a classified catalogue
of the literature of the subject, which, if not absolutely com
plete, is as complete down to its date as the learning and
industry of one man could in the nature of things make it.
While I am mentioning the work of a Dutch scholar, I may
at the same time gratefully acknowledge my personal obliga
tions to several members of the Spinoza Memorial Committee

xvi INTRODUCTION.

in the Netherlands for help and information freely given on
various points. Herein I am specially bound to Dr. Betz, the
Secretary of the Committee, Dr. Campbell, of the Royal
Library at the Hague, and Professor Land, of Leyden.

What has to be said here may be distributed under the
following heads :—

I. Editions and translations of Spinoza's works.
II. Authorities for Spinoza's life.

III. The early or controversial stage of Spinoza literature.

VI. Modern writings on Spinoza's philosophy as a whole.

V. Monographs and special discussions treating of parts

(especially the De Deo et Homine} and particular

aspects of Spinoza's work.

Dr. van der Linde's work is referred to as Bibliogr. simply.
It brings us down, as I have said, to 1871. Much more has
appeared since that time, as to which I can only call attention
to the more important of the publications with which I have
become acquainted. In some few particulars I am able to
supplement Dr. van der Linde's information as to writings of
earlier date.

I. THE WORKS OF SPINOZA.

These, in the original order of publication, are as follows : —

1. Renati des Cartes Principiorum Philosophise pars I & II,
more geometrico demonstrate per Benedictum de Spinoza
Amstelodamensem. Accesserunt ejusdem cogitata meta-
physica, &c. Amsterdam, 1663.

2. Tractatus Theologico-politicus, continens dissertationes
aliquot, quibus ostenditur libertatem philosophandi non
tantum salva pietate et reipublicae pace posse concedi : sed
eandem nisi cum pace reipublicae ipsaque pietate tolli non
posse, Hamburg (really Amsterdam), 1670. Some notes of
Spinoza's own to this treatise came to light later. See Bruder's
preface, and Ed. Bohmer : Ben. de Sp. Tractatus de Deo et
Homine &c. atque Adnotationes ad Tractatum Theologico-
politicum. Halle, 1852.

3. B. d. S. Opera Posthuma. Amsterdam, 1677. The con
tents are :

INTRODUCTION. xvii

Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata.

Tractatus politicus.

Tractatus de intellectus emendatione.

Epistolae doctorum quorundam virorum ad B. d. S.

et auctoris responsiones.
Compendium grammatices linguae hebrseae.

4. (Tractatus de Iride.) Stelkonstige reeckening van
den Regenboog. The Hague, 1687. (Bibliogr. no. 36.)

This work was long lost sight of and supposed to have
perished. It was recovered and reprinted by Dr. van Vloten
in his Supplementum (see below).

5. Letter of Spinoza to Dr. Lambert van Veldhuysen.
1844. Published by Prof. Tydeman, and given in ed. Bruder
as Ep. 75. (Bibliogr. no. 35.)

6. Ad Benedicti de Spinoza opera quse supersunt omnia
supplementum. Amsterdam, 1862.

By Dr. J. van Vloten. Uniform with Bruder's ed. (see
below), so as to make a supplementary volume to it. Contains
Spinoza's early Essay on God and Man, the Treatise on the
Rainbow, and some letters and parts of letters not before
published.

7. In 1705 two letters written in Dutch by Spinoza, and
including a paragraph not given in the Opera Posthuma, ap
peared in a periodical called Boekzaal der Geleerde Werrclt.
They seem to have been forgotten till Prof. Land quite
recently lighted upon them : see his paper reprinted from the
proceedings of the Dutch Academy of Sciences, ' Over de
eerste uitgaven der brieven van Spinoza/ Amsterdam, 1879;
and Appendix C to this book.

8. Letter of Spinoza to Dr. Meyer of Aug. 3, 1663. French
translation given by Saisset, CEuvres de Spinoza, iii. 458. The
original is printed for the first time in this book (Appendix C).
This letter might conveniently be cited as Ep. xxix. a.

Three collected editions of Spinoza's works have been
published : by Paulus (Jena, 1802, 2 vols.), Gfrorer (Stuttgart,
1830), and "Bruder (Leipzig, 1843-6, 3 vols.). Full titles and
particulars in Bibliogr. 38, 39, 41. The edition by Paulus is
still useful to the student, as all the authorities then known
for the life of Spinoza are conveniently brought together in

a 2

xviii INTRODUCTION.

the Collectanea at the end of vol. ii. Unfortunately the text
is by no means free from misprints ; and more unfortunately
this edition seems to have been used to print from in both
Gfrorer's and Bruder's, and some serious errors, though not
all, thus remain uncorrected. I have noted the following in
the Ethics : —

Part i, Prop. 22 : ' Quicquid ex aliquo Dei attribute,' &c.
So Opp. Posth., as the sense requires. All the modern editions
give alio.

Part 3, Prop. 21, Demonst. : * Deinde quatenus res aliqua
tristitia afficitur/ &c. Modern editions have re.

Part 5, Prop. 33, Schol. : '. . . nisi quod mens easdem
has perfectiones . . . aeternas habuerit,' &c. Modern editions
(except Gfrorer) have metus. Errors in the original edition of
the Opera Posthitma have likewise remained uncorrected.
See Ed. Bohmer, Spinozana, in Fichte's Zeitschrift fur Philo
sophic und philosophische Kritik, 1860, vol. xxxiii, p. 153. But
as to two of the remarks there made, see ib. vol. xlii. 1863,
p. 97, n. where they are retracted by the author.

Gfrorer's edition has a Latin preface of considerable merit,
in which the argument for determinism is put with a certain
freshness of topics and instances. In this preface there is
also a misprint or lapsus calami odd enough to deserve special
notice. In the part relating to Spinoza's letters we read :
' Penultima a iuvene nobili Edmundo Burk [Alberto Burgh]
conscripta est.'

Bruder's edition is the handiest and altogether best
equipped of the three, and the most convenient for reference.

Dr. Hugo Ginsberg has more lately undertaken a new
edition, in which I have seen the Ethics, the Letters, and
Tractatus Theologico-politicus. (Leipzig, 1875, &c.) A fourth
volume, apparently completing the edition, is announced this
year. The introductions contain much useful matter carefully
brought together. The text professes to be an improvement
on Bruder's ; but as regards the Ethics and Letters the
editor's intention of collating the original text of the Opp.
Posth. has not been thoroughly carried out by those entrusted
with the work. All the errors above noted are repeated ;
besides which the number of new misprints can only be called

INTRODUCTION. xix

enormous. The additions to the Letters first published in
Dr. van Vloten's Supplementum are also not fully given.
See Mind, vol. ii. p. 273.

As to translations : —

DutcJi. — A version of the ' Principles of Descartes' Philo
sophy ' (Renatus des Cartes beginzelen der wysbegeerte, &c.)
was published at Amsterdam in 1664. The translator, named
only as P. B., is stated to have been Peter Balling, one of
Spinoza's correspondents (Bibliogr. no. 2). The Tractatus
Theologico-politicus was translated into Dutch as early as 1673,
and again in 1694 (Bibliogr. nos. 17, 18); and the Opera
Posthtima appeared in Dutch almost as soon as in Latin (De
nagelate Schriften van B. d. S. &c. Bibliogr. 23). This last
work is well and carefully executed. The purity of the
language contrasts remarkably with the Latinisms which in
fested the current writing of the time, and some errors in the
Latin text of the Opp. Posth. are tacitly corrected. There do
not seem to be any modern Dutch versions.

English. — There is no complete English translation of
Spinoza, nor any trustworthy one of his most important
philosophical works. The Tractatus Theologico-politicus was
translated in 1689, and again (a reprint ?) in 1737. The trans
lation of 1689 is, like the original, anonymous ; neither is
Spinoza's name mentioned by the translator. So far as I
have looked at it, the rendering is pretty accurate, but it has
no great literary merit. Lastly, in 1862, and in a second
edition, 1868, there appeared a version which was on the
face of it anonymous, but was known to be the work of the
late Dr. R. Willis, and afterwards acknowledged by him.
The same writer published some years later a translation of
the Ethics and Letters. (Benedict de Spinoza ; his L ife, Cor
respondence, and Ethics. Triibner & Co., London, 1870.) Of
this book Professor Flint has lately said, with perfect judgment
and discretion, that it may be recommended to the merely
English reader. I should be glad to imitate his reserve, but
silence might be misunderstood. The fact is that Dr. Willis,
with extensive reading, a fair knowledge of philosophy, and
great interest in his subject, had not either scholarship adequate
to his task, or that habit of an exact use of language which is

xx INTRODUCTION.

almost as needful to the translator as knowledge of the original
tongue. The result (though, for many reasons, it is painful to
have to say it) is that this version is far too inaccurate to be
of any serious use. Not only shades of meaning are missed,
and Spinoza's terse Latin spread into loose paraphrase, but
there are constant errors in the rendering of perfectly common
Latin particles, idioms, and constructions. The same remarks
apply to the translation of the Tractatus Theologico-politicus.
There is a still later anonymous translation of the Ethics (New
York and London, 1876). Unfortunately the writer looked
upon Dr. Willis as an authority, and copied nearly all his
mistakes. In 1854 there appeared a translation of the Trac
tatus Politicus by W. Maccall (Bibliogr. no. 32, in Corrigenda),
a small book in an apparently obscure series called The
Cabinet of Reason. It is in the British Museum, but has
escaped the libraries of both Oxford and Cambridge Uni
versities. The translator speaks with enthusiasm of Spinoza ;
why this particular work was chosen for translation does not
plainly appear.

It appears from a diary kept by Shelley's friend Williams
at Pisa and Lerici in 1821-2, that Shelley not only planned
but executed to some extent a new translation of the Trac
tatus Theologico-politicus : ' to which Lord B. [Byron] has
consented to put his name, and to give it greater currency,
will write the life of that celebrated Jew to preface the work.'
This passage was first published in Mr. R. Garnett's article,
'Shelley's Last Days/ Fortnightly Review, June 1878 (vol.
xxiii. N.S., p. 858). A fragment of the first chapter, written
it would seem in England, and accidentally preserved, and a
fac-simile of the MS., may be seen in Mr. C. S. Middleton's
' Shelley and his Writings ' (London 1858). See p. 403, below.
No other trace of Shelley's design remains.

The treatise De Intellectus Emendatione, the Principia
Philosophic? and Cogitata Metaphysica, and the book De Deo
et Homine, have never to my knowledge been done into
English.

French. — The Tractattts Theologico-politicus was translated
in 1678, and appeared under several false titles at once (La
clef du sanctuaire . . . Reflexions curieuses d\m esprit desin-

INTRODUCTION. xxi

teresse . . . Traite des Ceremonies superstitieuses des Juifs.
Bibliogr. nos. 10, 11, 12). More recently the principal works
of Spinoza have been translated by E. Saisset ((Euvres de
Spinoza. Paris, 1842 ; 2nd ed. 1861, 3 vols. : reprinted without
alteration, 1872). The first volume is a critical introduction.
The translation is faithful, but the Principles of Descartes'
Philosophy and a good many of the letters are omitted. The
critical and bibliographical information has to some extent
become obsolete since Dr. van Vloten's publication of new
matter. Another version, intended to be complete, has been
begun by M. J. G. Prat, and is still in progress ((Euvres com-
pletes de B. de Spinoza. Premiere serie : ' Vie de Spinoza,
par Lucas ; ' ' Vie de Spinoza, par Colerus ; ' ' Principes de
la Philosophic de Descartes et Meditations metaphysiques.'
Paris, 1863. Deuxieme serie: Traite Theologico-politique,
1872. Ethique, Premiere Partie, 1880). A version of the
Tractatus Politicus, by the same hand, appeared separately in
1860. In 1878 M. Paul Janet gave for the first time a French
version of the De Deo et Homine, of which more presently.

German.— There have been several German translations
of the Ethics and other works of Spinoza. It will suffice to
mention here Auerbach's (last edition entitled B. de Spinoza's
sdmmtliche Werke, Stuttgart, 1871, 2 vols.), and a yet more
recent one in J. H. von Kirchmann's Philosophische Bib-
liothek, Berlin, 1868-72, which since its completion is also to
be had in a collected form. Auerbach's version contains the
whole philosophical works of Spinoza, including in the last
edition the essay De Deo et Homine, and is wonderfully close
to the original. The preface and life of Spinoza prefixed to
the first volume contain in a short compass nearly all the ex
traneous information which the reader is likely to want, and
form an excellent introduction to fuller study.1

Italian. — The Tractatus Theologico-politicus has recently
appeared in an Italian version, namely :

Trattato Teologico-politico di Benedetto de Spinoza, &c.

1 I may here mention that Auerbach's novel Spinoza : cin Denkerleben, is still
practically inaccessible to English readers who do not know German. A French
version appeared some time ago in the Revue Germanique, but has not been sepa
rately published. There are two Dutch translations, the latest dated 1875 ;
and a Spanish one by Gonzales Serrano (n,d.).

xxii INTRODUCTION.

(translating full title of original), tradotto dal testo latino per
Carlo Sarchi. Milan, 1875. Pp. xlii and 368. Preface by
way of dedication to S. Cesare Correnti. At p. xxxiii the
translator says : ' Non solamente concorda lo Spinoza colla
metafisica del Vico, di cui non fu mai incolpata la cattolica
ortodossia, ma sono consentanei i suoi principii con quelli di
S. Tommaso, del Dottore angelico, siccome se ne puo accertare
chiunque voglia meditare le Quest, ii, iii, iv, v, e seguenti
della Somma Tcologica!

Spanish. — Still more lately there has appeared the first
instalment, containing the Tractatus Theologico-politicus, of a
Spanish version of Spinoza's philosophical works :

Obras filosoficas de Spinoza vertidas al castellano y pre-
cedidas de una introduccion por Don Emilio Reus y Baha-
monde, &c. Madrid, 1878, 8vo. pp. cxvi and 368.

II. AUTHORITIES FOR SPINOZA'S LIFE.

i. Colerus. — First and chiefly we have the life of Spinoza
by Johannes Colerus (Kohler), German minister of the
Lutheran congregation at the Hague. This congregation,
existing side by side with the Dutch Reformed Church in
freedom and security much beyond any rights officially
allowed to it, was to some extent under the protection ol
German Lutheran princes ; and, for the convenience of Ger
mans residing at the Hague in the service of the States or
otherwise, there was a German minister as well as a Dutch
one. This office was filled by Colerus from 1693 to 1707
The usage of a bilingual ministry was kept up till 1832, when
the last German pastor died. Colerus first published his life
of Spinoza in Dutch, together with a controversial sermon
against Spinozism (Amsterdam, 1705. Bibliogr. 88). This
original edition is extremely rare. Only two copies are
known, one of which is in the Royal Library at the Hague
and the other at Halle (Bibliogr. p. vii). It was almost im
mediately followed, and for all practical purposes supplanted,
by a French version (La verite de la resurrection de Jesus
Christ defendue contre B. de Spinoza et ses spectateurs [secta-

INTRODUCTION. xxiii

teurs]. Avec la vie de ce fameux philosophe, tire*e, tant de ses
propres Ecrits, que de la bouche de plusieurs personnes dignes
de foi qui 1'ont connu. Par Jean Colerus, Ministre de 1'Eglise
LutheVienne de la Haye. The Hague, 1706. Bibliogr. 90.)
This French version of the life has been several times re
printed ; it is to be found in Paulus' edition of Spinoza, in
Saisset's and Prat's translations, and at the end of Dr. Gins
berg's edition of the Letters. An English translation of it
appeared in the same year, which is reprinted at the end of
this book (Appendix A), and a German one in 1723, remark
able for a portrait of Spinoza, in the lettering of which he is
described as ' characterem reprobationis in vultu gerens.'
There was a later German translation from the original
Dutch, 1734 (Bibliogr. 91-93). Many details have been
added or cleared up since, but Colerus remains the principal
authority. What gives his witness a singular value is its
freedom from all suspicion of designed panegyric. He detests
the philosophy of Spinoza, but is too honest to slander his
character as a man, or even to conceal his admiration for it.

2. Opera Pvst/mmaand Supplementum. — Some biographical
information is given in the editors' preface to the Opera
Posthmna, and something may be gathered from various
passages in Spinoza's correspondence, notably in the portions
first made known by Dr. van Vloten, who has also given other
documentary evidence bearing on Spinoza's life both in the
Supplementum and in his Dutch work on Spinoza (see
below).

3. Leibnitz. — A few personal recollections of Spinoza are
preserved in Leibnitz's writings. They will be specially
mentioned in their place in the biographical part (Paulus,
Collectanea ; Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, Descartes, et Spinoza}.

The remaining sources of information are of less weight.

4. Lucas. — Early in the eighteenth century, we cannot
say when first, but it seems before 1712 at all events
(see extract from Brit. Mus. MS. below), there became cur
rent in MS. a biography of Spinoza, attributed in the preface
to one Lucas, a physician of the Hague. It was often asso
ciated, under the common title La vie et V esprit de Mr.
Benoit de Spinosa, with a certain Traite des trois imposteurs,

xxiv INTRODUCTION.

which has nothing to do with Spinoza, and is again distinct
from the Latin book De tribns impostoribus, though it pre
tends to be from a Latin original. In this form the life was
printed at Amsterdam in 1719, in a publication called
Nouvelles Litteraires, and also in a separate book. The book
was almost immediately called in ; the life was reissued alone
at Hamburg [?], 1735, and this edition also became very scarce
(the British Museum has a copy).1 Meanwhile the Count de
Boulainvilliers, who possessed an early MS. copy, had worked
it up with the life by Colerus into a not very coherent whole
(La vie de Spinosa ecrite par M. Jean Colerus . . . augmentee
de beaucoup de particularity tirees dime vie manuscrite de ce
philosophe, faite par un de ses amis) in his book called a refu
tation of Spinoza, but really a popular exposition, v/hich was
published after the author's death (Brussels [?], 1731. Bibliogr.
107, where the date is given as 1726 by the misprint of XXVI.
for XXXI.).

The additions in Boulainvilliers, and some passages of
Lucas omitted by him (these from a MS. copy), are given in
Paulus' edition as footnotes to Colerus ; and Lucas is reprinted
at large from ed. 1735 by M. Prat (he does not mention
whence he obtained the use or a transcript of the book) in his
CEuvres computes de B. de Spinoza, ire serie. The history of
this work, and the connexion of the different forms in which
it has existed, were first unravelled by Paulus (preface to
vol. ii. of his edition). One could wish it were better worth
so much trouble. It is the production of an ardent and
undiscriminating panegyrist, confused in its narrative, and not
always consistent with what is known from other quarters.
As Auerbach justly says, Lucas' enthusiasm prevents him
from telling his story clearly or soberly. His unsupported
evidence is, in my opinion, worth very little, and at best we
can only use him as a witness auxiliary and subordinate to
Colerus. The authorship of this biography has been called in
doubt on the ground that Lucas (of whom, by the way, very
little seems to be known, save that he was the author of a

1 At the foot of p. 47 is the catchword L'ESPRIT, belonging to the title
'L'Esprit de M. de Spinosa,' which followed on p. 49 in the original issue of
1719, p. 48 being blank,

INTRODUCTION. xxv

satirical work called Les Quintessences} was not capable of it
(Prosper Marchand, Diet. Historique, article ' Impostoribus ').
But the question is not worth discussing.

5. Bayle, Kortholt, &c. — The remaining evidences may be
taken in the lump. A few touches are contributed by the
article on Spinoza in Bayle's Dictionary (reprinted as appendix
to Dr. Ginsberg's edition of the Tractatus Theologico-politicus],
which however is very loose in its facts, and by a notice
prefixed by Sebastian Kortholt to a second edition of his
father's book De tribus impostoribus magnis (Hamburg, 1700.
Bibliogr. 82 : the passages about Spinoza are given in Paulus'
Collectanea}. The ' three great impostors ' of the last-named
book are Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Hobbes, and Spinoza.
What is said of Spinoza personally in the preface is remark
able as the testimony of a very unwilling witness to the sim
plicity and blamelessness of his life. Colerus had Bayle and
Kortholt before him when he wrote his life of Spinoza. Then
we have a little book by one Stoupe,1 a Swiss officer in the
French service, La religion des hollandois, 1673 (Bibliogr. 63,
where the passages in question are given), containing a rather
confused account of Spinoza, who was then living, and of the
Tractatus Theologico-politicus. The Dutch theologians are
accused of lukewarmness, or worse, for not coming forward
more strongly to refute Spinoza ; this piece of evangelical
zeal is not unlikely, as Paulus suggests, to have had a political
motive. Dutch writers presently replied to these charges.
One of them, described as ' Jean Brun, Ministre du Roy des
Armies,' expresses astonishment at Stoupe's zeal against
Spinoza ; for Stoupe, he says, himself sought Spinoza's ac
quaintance, and made much of him on the occasion of his
visit to Conde's head-quarters at Utrecht (Bibliogr. 67). In
1847 there appeared in the Berlin Allgemeine Zeitschrift filr
Geschichte some notes of travel made in 1703 by Gottlieb
Stolle, afterwards a professor at Jena (Bibliogr. 86). At
Amsterdam he picked up some gossip about Spinoza from an
old man who professed to have known him well. This com
munication is of no importance, and in part manifestly absurd.

1 The name is variously spelt. Dr. van Vloten, in his recent address on the
unveiling of the Spinoza statue (see p. xxxvi. below), prints it Stoppa.

xxvi INTRODUCTION.

But Stolle likewise made the acquaintance of Rieuwerts
(or Riewerts, as the name appears on the title-page of the
Principia Philosophi&\ the publisher of the Opp. Posth., and
got from him some interesting particulars ; he also visited
Bayle, and spoke with him of Spinoza. See Ginsberg's In
troduction to his edition of the Ethics, pp. 20-25, where these
passages are reprinted.

Some other miscellaneous publications of the eighteenth
century contain statements or allusions touching Spinoza's
life ; but, so far as I know, these are either copied from the
authorities already mentioned, or were idle tales contradicted
by the known facts (e.g. Bibliogr. 98, no).

I may here say a word of the portraits of Spinoza. Three
only that I know of (if so many) may be reasonably considered
authentic : —

1. Engraving found in some copies of the Opp. Posth. It
is not described as rare in Bibliogr., but is difficult to meet
with in this country. After searching without result in public
libraries, we found an example in the copy of the Opp. Posth.
belonging to the London Institution, of which the frontispiece
to this book is a reproduction.

2. Miniature belonging to the late Queen of the Nether
lands, in the Summer Palace at the Hague. A chromo-
lithographic copy is given as frontispiece to Schaarschmidt's
edition of De Deo et Nomine.

3. Painting formerly belonging to Professor Paulus, the
editor of Spinoza, since to Dr. van Vloten, and by him pre
sented to the Town Museum at the Hague. Comparison of
the three suggests that No. i may be to some extent idealised.
On the other hand, No. i is by far the most artistic and lifelike.
Cf. Ed. Bohmer, Spinozana, i. p. 144, ii. pp. 86, 87 (in Zeitschr.

fur Philosophic und philosophised Kritik, Halle, vol. xxxvi.
1860, vol. xlii. I863).1

1 No. i also occurs without the inscription, but in that state is very rare. No.
2 was bought at Ley den in 1866, with some sort of tradition of Spinoza being the
person represented. Opinions differ as to the value to be attached to it. No. 3
has been engraved as frontispiece to Paulus' edition of Spinoza. Recent inspection
of the original has led me to suspect that it may be only a fancy picture by some
painter who had no. i before him : if this were so, it would of course be of no
authority.

INTRODUCTION. xxvii

III. EARLY LITERATURE RELATING TO SPINOZA.

Andala. — The following book, not without curiosity for
the elaborate comparison of Spinoza's philosophy with Stoi
cism, is not in Bibliogr. : —

Parts I. and II. relate to Spinoza ; the pages of Part I.
are headed : ' Philosophia R. Descartes | Spinosismo opposita.'
Those of Part II. : ' Spinosus Stoicismus fons Spinosismi et
puritas philosophise R. Descartes.' The Stoic philosophy is
compared with Spinoza's in parallel columns through a series
of numbered heads.

For my acquaintance with this book (as for the references
to some of the others hereafter mentioned) I am indebted to
the kindness of Mr. I. Bywater, of Exeter College, Oxford,
the owner of the copy I have seen. It is not in the British
Museum, the Bodleian, or the Cambridge University library.
The full title of the same author's book described in
Bibliogr. 303 is :—

Pp. i -44, headed : ' Cartesius physicae experimentalis ar
chitectus.'

The same author's Dissertationum philosophicarum heptas
(Franeq. MDCCXI) contains at least one incidental attack
on Spinoza, of whom it is said, among other amenities, in the

xxviii INTRODUCTION

fifth dissertation, De voluntatis libertate (p. 190) :' Hsec et alia
ostendunt Atheum avTOKardicpnov?

Bontekoe. — Dr. Cornelius Bontekoe's unexecuted intention
of refuting Spinoza is noticed in the text further on (ch. xii.).

Boulainvilliers. — Spinoza's name was strangely mixed up,
as above mentioned, with a certain Traite des trois imposteurs
which had a half-occult circulation in MS. in France and the
Low Countries ; a performance, for the rest, of no particular
merit, and itself a clumsy imposture as regards its pretended
origin and date. Later in the eighteenth century it was
printed, but without the use of Spinoza's name in any way.
See for detailed bibliography of this work Ed. Bohmer, Spino-
zana, 1860 (iibi suprri), pp. 156 sqq. I now add my contribu
tion for what it may be worth. In an eighteenth century
MS. in the British Museum (Add. 12064) there occurs, after
a copy of this treatise, a note which maybe worth transcribing.
It is as follows (I modernize the spelling and accents, and
correct one or two words) :

1 J'ai vu une copie MS. de 1'ouvrage de Monsieur le comte
de Boullainvilliers touchant la doctrine de Spinoza faite sur
1'original de 1'auteur au mois d'aout 1712, in-4to. Ce MS.
contient la Metaphysique et 1'Ethique de Spinoza, son Esprit
[i.e. the Traite des trois imposteurs] et sa vie, comme il [sic]
porte le titre. II commence par la vie de Spinoza, qui est fort
abregee, et dont le plus essentiel et remarquable a ete ajoute
a la vie de Spinoza ecrite par Colerus, et a ete imprime depuis
peu dans le livre de la Refutation des erreurs de Benoit
Spinoza, a Bruxelles chez Francois Foppens en 1731, in-8vo,
comme porte le titre, mais veritablement en Hollande.
[Bibliogr. 107, and see above.]

1 Apres la vie de Spinoza est place 1'ouvrage de Monsieur
Boullainvilliers avec ce titre :

' Essai de Metaphysique dans les Principes de B . . . de
Sp . . . compose par M.L.C.D.C.D.B., c'est-a-dire—

' II y precede un avertissement qui fait la preface de
I'imprime dans la Refutation de Spinoza, mais au commence
ment, ou il est dit : J'entreprends de faire parler dans les trois
traites suivans — on a retranche le mot trois — parce qu'on
n'a pas ose d'imprimer 1'Esprit de Spinoza, qui fait le troisieme

INTRODUCTION. xxix

traite. . . . Le troisieme traite est intitule : L'Esprit de Mon
sieur de Spinoza, c'est-a-dire ce que croit la plus saine partie
du monde.'

It would be rash to infer anything from this memorandum
as to the authorship of the Traite des trois imposteurs, which
is indeed quite beneath Boulainvilliers' ability, particularly as
shown in the so-called Refutation, with which it was associated
in the MS. of 1712 seen by the annotator. But it does
appear to connect Boulainvilliers with the affixing of Spinoza's
name to the work. It is not surprising that the writer of the
MS. now cited did not know (as he obviously did not) that it
had been printed in 1719. The 'copie MS.' mentioned by
him would seem to be that in the library of the Arsenal at
Paris, described ex relatione by Bohmer, Spinozana, ii. p. 157.
The British Museum possesses another MS. copy of the
Traite, which, however, does not offer any peculiar feature.

In Paris MSS. have apparently been searched for by
Bohmer. One would think, however, there must yet be
several unexamined copies in French libraries (cf. Spinozana,
ii. 89, 90).

At p. 116: ' Quomodo autem Philosophi nonnulli atque
Theologi, liberrimum hoc arbitrium cum Deo non competere
vaferrimo Spinosse (qui libertatem hanc, ut suo tempore
dante Deo demonstrabimus, ne quidem per somnium novit)
largiantur, ex ejus sese liberent tricis, id ego me ignorare
profiteer/

Langenhert's intention, like Dr. Bontekoe's, appears to
have remained unperformed.

Rijcke. — Theodori Ryckii, etc. ad diversos epistolae
ineditas. Ed. G. D. J. Schotel. Hagae Comitum, 1843.

At p. 6, in letter to Adrian Blyenburg, Aug. 14, 1675 : —

' Inter nos rumor est auctorem Tractaius Theologico-politici
in promptu habere librum de Deo et Mente multo priore isto
periculosiorem.'

Compare Spinoza's Ep. 19, of about the same date.

RysselQ. J. a) gives a short account of Spinoza and

xxx INTRODUCTION.

his philosophy in his edition of Vossius de philosophorum
sectis, Lips. 1690, 4to. p. 203.

Witte (Henning). — Diarium biographicum, in quo scrip-
tores seculi post natum Christum xvii. prsecipui . . . concise
descripti magno adducuntur numero. Gedani [Danzig] 1688,
4to. At sig. Nnnn, fo. 4, verso (the book is unpaged) sub ann.
1677, is the name of Spinoza and a list of his works: the
exact date of his death is added in a supplement.

An anti-Spinozist bibliography was attempted as early
as 1725 by Jon. Albert Fabricius in his wordily entitled book :

Delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum qui veri-
tatem religionis Christianae adversus atheos, Epicureos, Deistas
seu naturalistas, idololatras, Judaeos et Muhammedanos lu-
cubrationibus suis asseruerunt. Hamburg 1725, 4to.

Cap. XIII., p. 355:

Adversus Spinosam et alios mundum aeternum confin-
gentes.

At p. 357 is a list of writers against Spinoza : some names
of authors and books are given which I do not find in
Bibliogr. Besides Brampton Gurdon (as to whom see below
among English writers) the following are referred to, if re
ference it can be called.

Gerardus de Vries in exercitationibus rationalibus de Deo.1

D. Jo. Jachimi2 Weidneri Homo Spinosae religionem exer-
cens : qu. whether a separate work from ' Numen Spinozse in
refutationem erroris atheistici,' &c. (Bibliogr. 394), the title
of which is inaccurately cited by Fabricius.

Petrus van Mastricht in Gangraena. (Novitatum Car-
tesianarum Gangraena, s. Theologia Cartesiana detecta.
Amstelod. 1677. In University Libraries of Cambridge and
Leyden, and in the Bodleian : not in Brit. Mus. The author
was Professor of Theology at Utrecht, 1677-1706). The

1 Gerardi de Vries exercitationes rationales de Deo, divinisque perfectionibus,
necnon philosophemata miscellanea, &c. Trajecti ad Rhenum, MDCXCV, 410.
At p. 34 is a pious wish for unhappy persons who may be ' istis Spinis suffocati ' :
at p. 43 the Ethics are named : * consonant haec per omnia eis, quce occurrunt in
ipso limine profanoe Ethicae ordine geometrico demonstrate.' The book is mainly
anti-Cartesian. The author was a Professor at Utrecht.

2 Read Jo. Joachimi. The D. apparently stands for ' Domini. '

INTRODUCTION.

XXXI

full title is : Novitatum Cartesianarum Gangrana, nobiliores
plerasque corporis theologici partes arrodens & exedens
Seu theologia Cartesiana detecta auctore Petrovan Mastricht'
S. literarum in ecclesia & academia Duisburgensi doctors
& professore. Prostant Amstelodami : apud Janssonio-
Waesbergios. Anno MDCLXXVII.

_ In cap. 3, De Philosophia non ancilla Theologize occurs
criticism of the 'Tractatus Theologico-politicus.' Spinoza is
described as • Atheus quidem, sed Cartesianus tamen ' on p
35, and on p. 44 we find an early instance, perhaps the earliest'
of a pun wbch afterwards became current (see citations from
Andala and De Vries above) : ' Spinosam Spinos* argutiam
prolixius obtundere visum.' ' Van Mastricht shared the mis
take, not uncommon at the time, of attributing to Spinoza the
anonymous book 'Philosophia Scripture interpres,' really by

\ Jf 'z,"6"1 (6t f°rte etkm !Pse idem> aliis HoJ
verbis, habet Exercitator paradoxus de Philos. Interp. Script:

TI, , der Waeyen) in Summa

Theology (Pars Prior, Franeq. 1689).

_ The following English works of the late seventeenth and
eighteenth century, more or less concerned with Spinoza are
not in Bibliogr.

Cudworth (Ralph, D.D.).-True Intellectual System of
'Ve ' ° th is the same

n ed nr6« f
in ed. pr. 1678, fo., and ed. 1743, 2 vols. 4to.

'_As for that late theological politician, who, writing
against miracles, denies as well those of the former [by
natural power of angels &c.] as of this latter [supernatural]
kmd . we find his d.scourse every way so weak, ground
less, and incons,derable, that we could not think it here to
deserve a confutation.'

KW-Creation. A philosophical poem. In seven
books. By Sir Richard Blackmore, Knt M.D.,and Fellow ofTe
Physicians in London. London : MDCCXII. Svo.

jument were then in fashion, and Spinoza is here in no
my than Hildebrand's, of whom our author speaks thus (p. 3)
i, HUdebrandus (Hellebrandum suo nomine dixeris ').

XXX11

INTRODUCTION.

Also to be found in the collection of English Poets edited by
Johnson. It is a didactic poem on natural theology ; in the
course of which, as the author announces (Preface, p. xviii.)
' the modern atheists, Vaninus, Hobbs, and Spinosa ' are
spoken of in their turn. Again he says in the Preface
(p. xlv) :—

' Will they [the irreligious gentlemen of the age] derive
their certainty from Spinosa ? Can such an obscure, perplext,
unintelligible Author create such Certainty, as leaves no Doubt
or Distrust ? If he is indeed to be understood, what does he
alledge more than the ancient Fatalists have done, that should
amount to Demonstration ? '

The confutation of Spinoza in the body of the work is in
Book 3, v. 742. It is not without curiosity as a specimen of
what then passed muster in England as philosophy and

poetry :—

Spinosa next, to hide his black design,

And to his Side th' unwary to incline,

For Heav'n his Ensigns treacherous displays,

Declares for God, while he that God betrays :

For whom he's pleas'd such Evidence to bring,

As saves the Name, while it subverts the Thing.

Now hear his labour'd Scheme of impious Use ;
No Substance can another e'er produce.
Substance no Limit, no Confinement knows,
And its Existence from its Nature flows.
The Substance of the Universe is one,
Which is the Self-existent God alone.

The Spheres of Ether t which the World enclose,
And all th' Apartments, which the Whole compose ;
The lucid Orbs, the Earth, the Air, the Main,
With every different Being they contain,
Are one prodigious Aggregated God,
Of whom each Sand is part, each Stone and Clod.
Supream Perfections in each Insect shine,
Each Shrub is Sacred, and each Weed Divine.

Sages, no longer Egypt's Sons despise,

For their cheap Gods, and Savoury Deities !

No more their course l Divinities revile !

To Leeks, to Onions, to the Crocodile,

You might your humble Adorations pay,

Were you not Gods your selves, as well as they.

1 Sic.

INTRODUCTION.

As much you pull Religion's altars down,
By owning all Things God, as owning none.
For should all Beings be alike Divine,
Of Worship if an Object you assign,
God to himself must Veneration shew,
Must be the Idol and the Vot'ry too ;
And their assertions are alike absurd,
Who own no God, or none to be ador'd.

Colliber. An Impartial Enquiry into the Existence and
Nature of God &c. The third edition. By Samuel Colliber.
London, 1735. 8vo, pp. 276. Spinoza is several times cited
in order to be contradicted ; in some places the words of the
original are given.

Brampton Gurdon. A Defence of Natural and Revealed
Religion : Being a collection of the sermons preached at the
lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. ; (from
the year 1691 to the year 1732). 3 vols. Lond. 1739, fo.

At p. 277. The Pretended Difficulties in Natural or
Reveal'd Religion no Excuse for Infidelity. Sixteen Ser
mons preached in the church of Saint Mary le Bow, London ;
in the years 1721 and 1722. At the lecture founded by the
Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. By Brampton Gurdon, A.M.
Chaplain to the Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Maccles-
field, Lord High Chancellour of Great Britain.

Criticism of Spinoza occurs at pp. 297, 299-308, 329-30,
345, 358, 363-5-

' From all this it appears that Spinosa's monstrous system
is composed of Cabbalism, Cartesianism, and Predestinarian-
ism differently conjoined and interwoven. . . . With regard
to moral actions, the Spinosian errors are not so much abuses,

XXXIV

INTRODUCTION.

i natural and necessary consequences of the Predestinarian
scheme. If this be so, then it is possible that Spinosa did
not think himself an Atheist. . . .

< Those who have undertaken the confutation of this philo
sopher have not as yet succeeded. All that Bayle says
against Spinosa is unworthy of our notice. That ingenious
author scarce ever dipt beyond the surface of things. . . .

/ We have endeavoured to disclose the mysterious jargon of
this dark system, represent it in its true light, and confute it in
two different manners, by demonstrating truths diametrically
opposite to its principles, and by proving that all its demonstra
tions are sophistical. We conclude with this sole remark,
that till Predestinarian and Cartesian principles be ban
ished from the Christian schools, Spinosism can never be
solidly confuted.'

Vol. ii. (pp. 462) is on ancient religions and mythology,
and appears to contain no further mention of Spinoza.

Dugald Stewart. In the First Preliminary Dissertation of
the Encyclopedia Britannica (vol. i, p. 144 in 7tn ed-) a few
pages are given to Spinoza. They are of no value at the pre
sent day.

Gibbon. In the Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of-\
the jEncid (Misc. Works, ii. 5 10), Gibbon speaks of ' the prin
ciples which the impious Spinoza revived rather than invented.'
The context sufficiently shows that ' the impious Spinoza ' was
for Gibbon merely a stick to beat Warburton with.

One other book may be noticed under this head, merely
to save trouble to other students of Spinoza literature who
may come across it. It is: ' APETH-AOriA, or An En
quiry into the Original of moral Virtue ; wherein the false
Notions of Machiavel, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Mr. Bayle, as
they are collected and digested by the Author of the Fable of
the Bees, are examined and confuted, and the eternal and un
alterable Nature and Obligation of moral Virtue is stated and
vindicated. To which is prefixed a prefatory Introduction, in
a Letter to that Author.' By Alexander Innes, D.D., &c.
Westminster, MDCCXXVIIL, Svo., pp. xlii and 333.

There is not a word in the body of the book about Spinoza,
nor yet about Hobbes and Bayle. Machiaveili is once cited

INTRODUCTION.

as an authority. The argument against Mandeville, who is
the sole object of attack, proceeds on hedonistic principles,
and there is even an attempt at what late writers have called
a hedonic calculus (p. 199), so that I fancy the work may be
of some interest for the history of utilitarianism.

IV. Not as a matter of bibliography, but for the reader's
general convenience, I shall here mention some of the modern
accounts of Spinoza.

It will be generally admitted, I believe, by competent
persons that Kuno Fischer's (Geschichte dcr neueren Philoso
phic, vol. i. part 2) is on the whole the fullest and best. The
author has the merit, too rare in philosophical literature, of
combining thorough analysis with clear exposition and an
admirable style.

In English the best general view is still given by Mr.
Froude's essay reprinted from the ' Westminster Review ' in
Short Studies on Great Stibjects. The chapter on Spinoza in
Lewes' History of Philosophy is good for the biographical
part ; as to the philosophy, it excites an interest which it
hardly does enough to satisfy. There is a good article in
Blunt's Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, &c. (London, 1874), s. v.
' Spinoza,' showing careful study and great familiarity with
I the Ethics ; but it is of necessity much condensed. Com-
I pare * Spinozism ' in the same editor's Diet, of Doctrinal and
Historical Theology. London, 1871.

Hallam's account must be mentioned as occurring in a

i work classical in its own line ( Literature of Europe,' part iv.

I ch. iii., ss. 71-96, ch. iv. ss. 9-12). It is painstaking and

perhaps as free from material inaccuracy as a mere abstract

I can be. A more popular one, candid and careful as far as it

I goes, is in Milman's ' History of the Jews/ vol. iii. p. 374, sqq.

(3rded. 1863).

Dr. van Vloten's Benedictus de Spinoza naar Lev en en
Werken (2nd ed., Schiedam, 1871) is a work more addressed
to non-philosophical readers than Kuno Fischer's, but his
account is thus far, unfortunately, accessible only to those
who can read Dutch. Spinoza's doctrines are stated, as far
as possible, in his own language, so that the book has a value

xxxvi INTRODUCTION.

independent of Dr. van Vloten's interpretation, which on
many points is open to discussion. I am bound to say, how
ever (the more so as divers philosophers by profession, both
in the Netherlands and in Germany, have unduly slighted his
work), that in the main I agree with his results.1

The most determined adversary of Dr, van Vloten is Dr.
Spruyt, now a professor of philosophy at Amsterdam (Van
Vloten's Benedictus de Spinoza beoordeeld door C. B.
Spruyt. Utrecht, 1876. 8vo., pp. xi. and 100). His work,
though short, has three distinct aims : vindication of Descartes,
especially as to his services to physical science ; criticism of
Dr. van Vloten's treatment of Spinoza ; and criticism of
Spinoza himself. As to the first topic, I do not know that
Dr. van Vloten would really have much to say to the contrary,
and I certainly have nothing. As to the second, Dr. van
Vloten is well able to take care of himself, and moreover Mr.
Lotsy has come to support him. But it is curious that, not
withstanding Dr. Spruyt's vehement and supercilious criticism
of most parts of Dr, van Vloten's work, his own remarks on
Spinozism amount to a virtual admission that Dr. van Vloten's
view of the general effect and tendency of Spinoza's philo
sophy is correct. The real difference is on the question how
far Spinoza was himself aware of its tendency, and a question
of this kind is seldom so free from doubt as to justify one in
treating with absolute contempt an opinion different from
one's own. As to Spinoza himself, there is only one thing to
be said of Dr. Spruyt's criticism. Haeret in cortice. It is the
kind of criticism that naturally occurs to a reader instructed
in modern philosophy who looks into Spinoza without any
serious endeavour to discover what was really in his mind.
It makes verbal points effectively, but adds no more to our
understanding of Spinoza than the abundant criticism of the j
same kind that has gone before it. One point of substance is
well seen, namely, that Spinoza's philosophy is not the flawless
miracle of consistency imagined by many writers. But Dr.

1 On the unveiling of the statue of Spinoza at the Hague on September 14,
1880, Dr. van Vloten delivered an address, which is printed in the form of a
pamphlet (Spinoza de blijde boodschapper der mondige menschheid. 's Graven-
hage, 1880).

I NT ROD UCTION. xxx vii

Spruyt runs into the other extreme, and seems to think no
inconsistency too gross to ascribe to him. Dr. Spruyt is espe
cially scandalised at Spinoza's, theory of politics (which,
according to him, is quite irreconcilable with the Ethics), and
has devised for it the neat phrase * brutale machtsvergoding ; '
which has, I believe, been a source of great comfort to anti-
Spinozistic clergymen and journalists.

In the last year or two there have appeared Herr Theodor
Camerer's Die Lehre Spinoza's (Stuttgart, 1877), and Mr.
Lotsy's Spinoza's Wijsbegeerte (Amsterdam, 1878). Herr
Camerer's book is a minute analysis of the philosophy of the
Ethics, which has the merit of never shirking a difficulty,
though the difficulties are sometimes exaggerated. Those
'who know Spinoza already may find it suggestive ; and for
such only it appears to be written. The total absence of his
torical criticism is a rather serious defect. Some things in
Spinoza are naturally obscure if one does not look back at
least as far as Descartes. Mr. Lotsy takes much the same line
as Dr. van Vloten, but even more emphatically. The book
is vigorous, clear-headed, and often original in treatment. It
is noticed more at length in a review contributed by myself
to Mind (July 1879, P- 43 J)-

Then there is a class of writings which may be described
as mixed exposition and criticism, with criticism predominat
ing. Among these, which are very numerous, a chief place is
held by Trendelenburg's essays, Ueber Spinoza's Grund-
gedanken und dessen Erfolg and Ueber die anfgefundenen
Ergdnznngen zu Spinoza's Werken und deren Ertrag filr
Spinoza's Leben und Lehre (Historische Beitrdge ziir Philoso-
phie, vol. ii. p. 31, and vol. iii. p. 277). The later of the two
essays is occasioned by the publication of De Deo et Homine,
but is by no means confined to points immediately raised
thereby.

H. C. W. Sigwart's Der Spinozismus historisch und philo-
sophisch erlautert, &c., Tubingen, 1839 (Bibliogr. 310), has
suffered the fate of many good books in being assimilated by
later ones, till there is little actual need to consult it in its
original form. But a good and valuable book it remains.

An elaborate criticism is given in the introductory volume

xxxviii INTRODUCTION.

to Saisset's translation. It is avowedly polemical, and belongs
to a school of philosophy which may now happily be consi
dered pretty well extinct even in its own country, where till
quite lately it sat in high places. But Saisset is an able and
fair combatant, and stands, I think, at or near the head of the
distinctly adverse writers on Spinoza. In English it has not
been my fortune to meet with anything of the kind (save Prof.
Flint's work mentioned below) showing competent acquaint
ance with the subject.

One or two recent works are on the line between general
and special monographs. I will name here : —

Busolt (Dr. Georg) : Die Grundziige der Erkenntnisz-
Theorie und Metaphysik Spinoza's dargestellt, erlautert und
gewurdigt. Von der Universitat zu Konigsberg gekronte
Preisschrift. Berlin, 1875.

Turbiglio (Sebastiano) : Benedetto Spinoza e le trasforma-
zioni del suo pensiero. Libri tre. Rome, 1874.

Signor Turbiglio seems to hold that Spinoza never fully
developed his own thought ; he distinguishes between ' lo
Spinoza reale,' and 'lo Spinoza fenomenico.' Of Spinoza's
influence he says, ad fin, : ' In qualunque punto dell' eta
moderna voi interroghiate il pensiero filosofico, vi si revela la
presenza dello Spinoza.'

Last, not least, come M. Kenan's commemorative address
(Spinoza, Discours prononce a la Haye le 21 fevrier 1877, a
1'occasion du 2OOe anniversaire de samort The Hague, 1877),
a masterpiece in its kind ; and Professor Land's lecture Ter
Gedachtenis van Spinoza (Leyden, 1877), which, with its
illustrative notes, gives in a small compass an accurate his
torical and critical survey of Spinoza's philosophy, and
extracts from many authorities in the originals. I may here
note that any one who wishes to make a special study of
Spinoza will find it amply worth his* while to be able to read
Dutch.

The only formal commentary on Spinoza's works which I
know of is J. H. von Kirchmann's. It has appeared in parts
in the Philosophische Bibliothek, and is now to be had as a
book complete in itself, or together with the translation (sub
tit, Benedict von Spinoza's sammtliche philosophische Werke

INTRODUCTION, xxxix

iibersetzt und erlautert von J. H. v. Kirchmann und C.
Schaarschmidt).

It is hardly needful to add that the general histories of
philosophy, such as Erdmann's and Ueberweg's, may also be
usefully consulted.

V. Among special monographs and discussions those on
the treatise De Deo et Homine form a class apart.

Avenarius (Dr. Richard) : Ueber die beiden ersten Phasen
des Spinozischen Pantheismus, &c. Leipzig, 1868 (Bibliogr.
146).

Schaarschmidt (Prof. C.) : Benedicti de Spinoza korte Ver-
handelingvan God, deMensch en deszelfs Welstand, tractatuli
deperditi de Deo et homine ejusque felicitate versio Belgica.
Ad antiquissimi codicis fidem edidit et praefatus est de Spi-
nozae philosophiae fontibus Car. Schaarschmidt. Amstelodami
1869 (Bibliogr. 51).

Sigwart (Dr. Christoph) : Benedict de Spinoza's kurzer
Tractat von Gott, dem Menschen und dessen Gliickseligkeit,
&c. Tubingen, 1870 (Bibliogr. 53). A translation with com
mentary : cf. the same author's earlier monograph Spinoza's
neuentdeckter Tractat, &c. Gotha, 1866 (Bibliogr. 144).

All these are important, and also Trendelenburg's essay
already mentioned. I must be allowed to express the pleasure
I have found in Professor Schaarschmidt's preface, apart from
its considerable philosophical merits, as an example of elegant
and unaffected modern Latinity. Quite lately M. Paul Janet
has given us the first French version of the treatise, with an
excellent introduction :

Supplement aux CEuvres de Spinoza : Dieu, 1'homme et
la beatitude : traduit pour la premiere fois en frangais et
precede d'une introduction. Paris, 1878.

Monographs on special aspects and relations of Spinoza's
philosophy are too numerous to be effectively dealt with here.
Dr. Joel's researches on the Jewish predecessors of Spinoza
(Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophic, Breslau, 1 876, a re
issue of several earlier published essays of various dates)
are mentioned in the body of the work (ch. iv.). Dr. Joel's
inferences are criticised by Mr. W. R. Sorley in Mind) No.

xl INTRODUCTION.

I()> July 1880, 'Jewish Mediaeval Philosophy and Spinoza,'
who holds that Spinoza's relation to these thinkers ' was as
much one of antagonism as Descartes' relation to Christian
Scholasticism, and indeed much more so.'

Spinoza's Relation to Descartes. — Bouillier, Histoire de la
Philosophic Cartesienne, 3rd ed., Paris, 1868, 2 vols., chaps,
xv-xix in vol. i. being on Spinoza (not in Bibliogr.).

Dr. F. G. Hann : Die Ethik Spinoza's und die Philosophic
Descartes, Innsbruck, 1875.

Encyclop&dia Britannica, Qth ed., art. Cartcsianism, by
Professor Caird.

All these writers adhere to the view that Spinoza's philo
sophy is a direct development from Descartes, and little or
nothing else.

Bearings of Spinoza on Modern Tlieology. — Heine : Zur
Geschichte der Religion und Philosophic in Deutschland, 2tes
Buch. Samnitl. Werke, vol. v. p. 123 sqq.

Matthew Arnold : Spinoza and the Bible. In Essays in
Criticism, 3rd ed. London, 1875, at p. 357.

Prof. Robert Flint : Anti-theistic theories. Being the
Baird lecture for 1877. Edinburgh and London, 1879.

Pp. 358-375 are on Spinoza; also note xxxviii. pp.
547-552.

Prof. Flint's opinions as to the value, speculative and
practical, of Spinoza's philosophy belong to a school from
which I widely differ : he speaks, for example, of the ethical
and political applications of Spinoza's doctrine as 'immoral
and slavish.' But his work deserves respect as that of a
thoroughly competent scholar. The note will be found useful
by students.

Dr. M. M. Kalisch: Path and Goal. London, 1880: see
pp. 377-405, in title ' Pantheism.'

Relations of Spinoza to Modern Philosophy CMd Literature.
—Conrad von Orelli : Spinoza's Leben and Lehre, &c., 2nd
ed. Aarau, 1850 (Bibliogr. 130).

The specific object of this work is to defend Spinoza
against the criticisms of Schelling, Hegel, and their followers.
It contains a careful discussion of Spinoza's philosophy, and
collects many^opinions and sayings of modern writers on him.

INTRODUCTION. xli

Nourrisson : Spinoza et le naturalisme contemporain.
Paris, 1866 (Bibliogr. 141).

In this little book literary and bibliographical notices of
real interest are strangely associated with superficial and de
clamatory criticism. Cf. M. Paul Janet's article in Revue des
Deux Mondes, July 15, 1867.

Dr. S. E. Lowenhardt : Benedictus von Spinoza in seinem
Verhaltnisz zur Philosophic und Naturforschung der neueren
Zeit. Berlin, 1872.

An able vindication of the harmony of Spinoza's doctrine
with modern physiology and psychology. Several modern
criticisms of Spinoza are considered in detail.

Paul Janet : French Thought and Spinozism. In Contem
porary Review, May 1877.

Dr. Karl Rehorn : G. E. Lessing's Stellung zur Philoso
phic des Spinoza. Frankfurt am Main, 1 877.

Guyau : La morale d'Epicure et ses rapports avec les
doctrines contemporaines. Paris, 1878.

Pp. 227-237 are on Spinoza. ' Le vaste systeme de
Spinoza, ou ceux d'Epicure et de Hobbes sont absorbes, con-
tient d'avance les theories fondamentales de 1'ecole utilitaire
frangaise et anglaise.'

Jellinek (Dr. Georg) : Die Beziehungen Gothes zu
Spinoza. Vortrag gehalten im Vereine der Literaturfreunde
zu Wien. Wien, 1878.

Frohschammer (Prof. J.) : Ueber die Bedeutung der
Einbildungskraft in der Philosophic Kant's und Spinoza's.
Miinchen, 1879. The part concerned with Spinoza (pp.
118-172) is an ingenious attempt to read into Spinoza, or
exhibit as necessary for the completeness of Spinoza's system,
an approximation to the author's own point of view.

In conclusion, it may be proper to say a word of the
method I have myself followed. While I have endeavoured
to make myself acquainted as far as practicable with the
modern literature of the subject, my opinions of the meaning
and value of Spinoza's philosophy have been formed by the
study of Spinoza at first hand ; and if this book induces even
a few readers to do the same thing for themselves, and to

xlii INTRODUCTION.

forget as far as possible, in so doing, what they may have
read about Spinoza here or elsewhere, I shall desire no
other success. The only way to understand a great philoso
pher is to meet him face to face, whatever the apparent diffi
culties. A certain amount of historical preparation is indeed
at least advisable ; for to apprehend rightly the speech of a
past time one must know something of its conditions. Apart
from this, the author is his own best interpreter, and it has been
my aim rather to make Spinoza explain himself than to dis
cover explanations from the outside. As Herder says, ' Einen
Schriftsteller aus sich selbst zu erklaren ist die honestas jedem
honest o schuldig.'

SPI NOZ A:

HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY,

CHAPTER I.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.

Quae cum magna modis multis miranda videtur
gentibus humanis regio visendaque fertur,
rebus opima bonis, multa munita virum vi,
nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se,
nee sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur.

LUCRETIUS, i. 726.

BARUCH DE SPINOZA was born at Amsterdam on November
24, I632.1 His parents, of whose circumstances and position
in life nothing certain is known, were members of the com
munity of Jewish emigrants from Portugal and Spain which
had then been established in the Netherlands for something
more than a generation. Before we enter on Spinoza's life,
it may be not amiss to let our attention rest for a while on
the society in which he was brought up, the vicissitudes of
jits foundation and growth, and the tone of thought and in
struction which prevailed in it.2 Something we may there

1 The house has been identified with great probability within the last few
years. Certainty is to be attained, however, only by the inspection of documents
jkvhich the owner of the house refuses to produce.

2 My chief authority on this subject is Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, vols. ix.
;ind x. I have also consulted Koenen, Geschiedenis der Joden in Nederland
[Utrecht, 1843).

2 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

find to throw light on the manner in which the early signs of
Spinoza's philosophical genius were received by his own
people, though we shall assuredly be disappointed if we look
in external circumstances of education or study, in the in
fluence of masters or companions either Jewish or Gentile,
for an explanation of that genius itself. It was well said of
an Indian poet : ' Of mighty men and of great rivers the
springs are obscure.' The enlarged and purified vision of
modern science may perceive much, and guess more, of the
conditions that make the appearance of genius possible. But
the conditions which fix it at the very time and place, the
secret workings of nature which bring it to pass that an
^Eschylus, a Lionardo, a Faraday, a Kant, or a Spinoza is
born upon the earth, are as obscure now as they were a thou
sand years ago. The power of these men still bears with it
the reverence and awe that belong to great things unaccount
able.

The result of the persecutions, banishments, and forcible
conversions which had earned for the sovereigns of Spain the
title of Catholic, and laid the foundation of their country's ruin
at the very height of its prosperity, had been to leave in Spain
and Portugal a large class of ' new Christians/ nominally con
verted and openly conforming Jews who in many cases kept
up in secret, from generation to generation, some remnant of
Jewish usages. Their tendencies to covert persistence in the
faith and customs of their fathers were watched by the In
quisition with an evil and sleepless eye. Persecutions, autos da
//, and, notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Spanish govern
ment, flights from the land of the oppressor were constant.
Towards the close of the sixteenth century it seemed as if the
precarious state of the _Marnmos — so these unacknowledged
Jews were called — was about to become hopeless. The power
of Spain still waxed in Europe ; where Spain went, there the
Inquisition followed ; and where the Inquisition came, there
justice and mercy ceased to be.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 3

The Italian States, which had formerly offered a refuge to
the exiles, were no longer safe for them. England, now the
chief Protestant country, had driven out the Jews three
centuries before, and they did not again find admission till
the last days of the Commonwealth. It was out of the
dominion of Spain herself that the light of deliverance first
shone. The fury of the Inquisition defeated its own purpose.
The Netherlands revolted from the intolerable combination of
secular with spiritual tyranny ; and from the desperate rising,
as it at first seemed, of a handful of subjects in a corner of the
Spanish Empire there sprang a commonwealth which for the
greater part of a century was the most free, the most pro
sperous, and the most tolerant in Europe.

No sooner was the independence of the Netherlands

practically secure than the new Christians of Spain and

Portugal began to look thither for a refuge. In or about

1591 overtures were made to the magistrates of Middelburg

for a settlement of Marranos, which would have secured to

the province of Zealand the first advantages of Jewish

industry and commerce. The civil authorities were disposed

to enter into the plan, but theological prejudice stood in

the way. The Reformed clergy set themselves against the

proposal, and nothing came of it. But in the spring of 1593

a vessel sailed in secret from Portugal with a small company

of Marranos,1 determined to adventure themselves on the

Dutch coasts, and trust their fortunes to the principles of

toleration that had been proclaimed by William of Orange.

I After a not uneventful voyage they landed at Emderi, and

I found assistance at the hands of German Jews already settled

I some time past in East Friesland. By their advice the fugitives

I made their way to Amsterdam, where they arrived on April 23.

! This little nucleus of a colony soon received accession. In 1 596

! the English fleet under Essex, returning from the sack of Cadiz,

brought a number of new Christians, presumably not un-

1 Gfatz, ix. 492, arid, as to the exact date, #.• note io.
B 2

4 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

willing prisoners, who openly returned to Judaism as soon as
they were safe in Holland. It was some time before any
official notice was taken of the new community, and its
recognition was hastened by a curious accident. The
celebration of the Day of Atonement attracted the suspicion
of the citizens, who knew that the immigrants came from
Popish lands, and guessed that their mysterious meeting
could be nothing else than a Popish plot. The congregation
was surprised by armed force, and the leaders arrested.
These, once in the presence of the magistrates, speedily
convinced them that the Pope and the Inquisition were as
odious to themselves as to the Protestants of the United
Provinces. Being thus made known to the civil powers, the
Jews were emboldened to ask leave to build a synagogue.
After some discussion this was granted, and the first syna
gogue of Amsterdam was opened in 1 598. Ten years later
the numbers of the colony had so much increased that a new
synagogue was needed. This was itself only temporary. In
1675, when the Jewish community of Amsterdam had reached
the height of its prosperity, the present Portuguese synagogue
was completed, amidst the felicitations not only of Jewish but
of Christian theologians and poets.

Meanwhile some years more seem to have passed before
the Jews acquired a distinct legal status. They were ex
posed to inconvenience from an unexpected quarter ; for in
the battle of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants the
worsted Remonstrants took the line of complaining that
various strange sects, including Jews,1 enjoyed a freedom of
worship which was denied to themselves. These complaints
did the Remonstrants no good, but they did the Jews some
little harm. Mixed marriages were forbidden ; the Jews
were once threatened, if not more, with the closing of the

1 'Ja de Joden zelfs, die Christus verzaken, welke zij supplianten (i.e. your
petitioners) houden voor huu eenigen Heiland.' — Remonstrant Petition, 1617, ap.
Koenen, p. 145.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 5

synagogue ; and it seems that in other parts of the Nether
lands they were not always sure even of personal liberty. In
1619 an ordinance was made by the States of Holland, on the
report of a commission appointed some time before, by which
provision was made for the regular admission and government
of the Jews.1 After this the Hebrew colony waxed and
throve apace. We have still a living record of their prosperity
in Rembrandt's grave and majestic portraits of Jewish
merchants and rabbis. And they increased and multiplied
with every fresh act of persecuting folly in the Spanish
peninsula. Had the Catholic rulers intended to impoverish
their own countries and enrich the heretical provinces, they
could not have done it better. The exiles, though they pre
served among themselves (as their descendants still preserve
for official purposes) the use of the Portuguese and Spanish
languages, and even in their ceremonies and manners had
some remnants of their old outward conformity to the Church
of Rome, soon repaid the hospitality of their adopted country
with faithful attachment, as well as with the material advan
tages that accompanied their settlement. Spinoza was a good
citizen if not an active one ; and several passages of his writings
show that the free institutions of the Dutch Republic were to
him the object not merely of esteem but of patriotic affection.
Yet he has been accused even in our own time of preaching
maxims of despotism. But for the present let us return
from his critics to his immediate ancestors and contemporaries.
The occasion was a great one for the rising Jewish
community, the New Jerusalem, as it was already called in
Spinoza's generation. The leaders of the Amsterdam syna
gogue might, in the opinion of the latest and most exact
historian of the Jewish nation, have done wonders if they had
been capable of making the most of their fortune. But they

1 Koenen, 147. Each Province was to make its own rules, subject to the
condition that no distinctive dress or badge (such as was usual in Catholic
countries) should be imposed. Koenen gives no particulars of what was done at
Amsterdam.

6 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

were not men of that stamp. Ability, industry, and fortitude
they possessed : the renovating power of genius was wanting.
Their learning was rather of that formalist kind which is dis
concerted by genius, and forces a quarrel on it. And so it
was when genius appeared among them in the person of
Spinoza. The conjecture which deals with lost possibilities
might amuse itself worse than with the contemplation of what
the author of the ( Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' and friend
of De Witt might have done for his people in civil and political
matters if he had remained in their community.

Saul Levi Morteira, said to have been Spinoza's instructor,
was a man who had no claim to original powers. Pie was
not specially remarkable for eloquence, nor did he stand in
the first rank of Jewish learning ; altogether he was of those
who care not to commit themselves out of beaten paths.
His colleague, Isaac Aboab de Fonseca, presided over the
synagogue of Amsterdam for nearly seventy years. Eloquence
was his chief, it would seem his only gift. His discourses
commanded admiration, but he was neither eminent in
learning nor fitted to deal with questions of practical moment.
PJis character was lacking in force, his perceptions in width
and comprehension ; he was not capable of firm and clear
sighted action.

A better known personage than either of these two was
Manasseh ben Israel. His father, like others of the first
founders of the colony, had escaped from the pious cares of
the Holy Office, shattered in body and ruined in estate, to
find his last resting-place among his own people. The son
has a place in the social history of England by his unsparing
efforts to procure from Cromwell the readmission of the Jews.
He had to encounter much opposition, including an extra
ordinary polemic from Prynne, in which a great deal of curi-
J learning was mixed up with repetition of all the mediaeval
ies of Jewish child-murder, cannibalism, and sacrilege.
Nor did he live to see his purpose effected : he died in 1657,

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 7

and the Jews found their way back into England on a footing
of informal but unquestioned liberty only after the Restora
tion. But the way had none the less been made for them by
Manasseh ben Israel's endeavours. It may be (as Dr. Gratz
suggests) that the very foibles of his character, his turn for
mystical interpretations of theology, and his credulity as to
prophetic signs and seasons, were additions to his strength
for that particular work, and that a stronger man would not
have done it so well. His credulity was indeed nothing
singular : about the same time a deputation of Asiatic Jews
came to England to inquire if Cromwell were not the Messiah.
For his learning, it was ample and various, and extended to
European as well as Hebrew literature. But it did not save
him from giving himself over to superstition and letter-
worship which often ran into puerilities. He was a voluminous
writer, but wrote with an undiscerning hand, mixing up in
his compilation things wise and foolish. Yet he had one
power which may at times almost fill the place of genius—
the power of winning men's friendship. He was of an open
and generous nature, which showed itself in that frank
urbanity and polished conversation which is wont everywhere
to draw confidence to it.

At the time when the congregation of Amsterdam con
demned Spinoza, Manasseh ben Israel was absent on his
mission to England. It may be doubted whether his presence
would have ensured any more rational course of action.
A believer in the verbal inspiration of the Talmud could
have had nothing to urge for moderation, unless on
grounds of secular policy ; and in this case it is by no means
clear that policy was not for once on the side of the
fanatics.

In the generation before Spinoza the Jewish common
wealth of Amsterdam did not enjoy unbroken peace within
itself. For many years there was a schism in the synagogue,
arising out of the scandal caused to the stricter members by

8 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

the survival of Spanish-Catholic practices and manners ; and
in Spinoza's first years the congregation was troubled by the
strange career of Uriel_ da Costa. He too, deserves brief
mention here ; not that he was a person of any weight or in-
/ fluence, much less a precursor of Spinoza ; but his fate illus
trates the temper of the times, and his excommunication may
have served as a precedent in Spinoza's case. He was born
of a New Christian family in Oporto ; his parents were, how
ever, orthodox in conviction as well as in name, and he re
ceived a learned education under Jesuit instructors. Dissatis
fied with their formal dogmatism, he betook himself to the
study of the prophets of the Old Testament ; and the result
was that he fled to Amsterdam, together with his mother and
brothers, joined the synagogue, and changed his former Chris
tian name Gabriel for the purely Jewish one of Uriel. But
here also disappointment awaited him. He was perplexed
and shocked by the discrepance between Judaism such as he
found it, or thought to find it, in the Scriptures, and such as
it had been made by Rabbinical gloss and tradition. He
denounced the modern teachers and rulers as Pharisees, and
set their ceremonies at naught ; they replied to his criticism
by excommunicating him. He went on to publish a contro
versial tract against the immortality of the soul ; upon this the
chiefs of the synagogue denounced him to the civil authorities,
and he was fined and imprisoned, and his book publicly burnt.
For fifteen years he endured the social penalties of excom
munication, but at length his patience gave way, and he was
formally reconciled. But he seems to have made no secret of
the purely outward character of his conformity.1 At this very
time his course of unregulated speculation was leading him
on from an anti-Rabbinical and as it were Puritan Judaism
to a doctrine of bare natural Deism. Nor did he observe
ordinary caution in his conversation. There followed a new
and more stringent excommunication, to be taken off only

1 Er wollte, wie er sagte, • unter Affen auch ein Affe sein.' Gratz, x. 137.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 9

on condition of a solemn and public act of penance. Da Costa
held out this time for seven years, and then again submitted.
He underwent a humiliating ceremony, modelled on those of
the Inquisition, which were probably known by bitter personal
experience to some of those present.

It is a general fact in human history, and one of the sad
dest, that no sooner has a persecuted community secured its
freedom than it takes to persecuting in its turn. This was
shown at the very same time by the Reformed Church of the
Netherlands : ' Those who but a few years before had com
plained of the cruelty of the Church of Rome were no sooner
delivered from that, than they began to call for the same ways
of persecuting those who were of the other side,' l And it was
not far from this time that the Puritan colonists of New
England set up an ecclesiastical tyranny far more oppressive
and searching than that from which they had fled. Da Costa's
penance was completed by his lying down athwart the thresh
old of the synagogue, so that the whole congregation stepped
over him as they passed out. Humiliation he must have ex-
'pected, but the reality was too much for his pride. He deter
mined to live only so long as was needful to commit to writ
ing, in the form of an autobiography, a fierce denunciation of
his enemies and persecutors. Having completed this writing,
he shot himself in his own house.

It does not seem that Da Costa's speculations had any
value, and his character cannot be said to call for admiration.
Martyrs and confessors in the cause of free thought have not
been so few or so weak that one who was twice excommuni
cated, and twice recanted, can claim a high place among them ;
and there was at least a large element of personal pique and
resentment in Da Costa's later courses. But we cannot refuse
our pity to a life cast among such untoward surroundings, nor
can we acquit the chiefs of the synagogue of excessive and
ill-judged harshness throughout their dealings with this un-

1 Burnet, History of his own 7^ime, i. 315.

io SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

happy man. His story prepares us to hear with much less
surprise of Spinoza's treatment sixteen years later.

As to the general state of education among the Jews of
Amsterdam, they were exceedingly well provided with the
appliances of learning and literature then current. So much
would sufficiently appear from Spinoza's works and corre
spondence alone. His writing is that of a man who has been
brought up among scholars and has mastered betimes all the
knowledge that a scholar is expected to possess. But high
literary culture and great literary facility are compatible with
great feebleness of intellectual grasp. Scholarship is in itself
no warranty of sound thinking. And so it was that the
Hebrew scholars whp exchanged more or less elegant Latin
verses with European scholars of the stamp of Grotius or
Barlaeus were ready and even eager to give ear to the wildest
and most idle fancies in matters of theology and philosophy.
The doctrine of the Kabbalah, likened by the historian to
whom I am so much indebted to a fungus growth creeping
over the body of the Law and the Traditions, was almost uni
versally received. A generation filled with the east wind of
mystical ravings hungered after signs and wonders, and signs
and wonders came without stint. Demoniacs, exorcisms,
miracles, false prophets, even false Messiahs, fed the credulity
of the Levantine Jews, and deceived not a few elsewhere.
The most singular appearance of this kind, the career of
Sabbatai Zevi, belongs however to a somewhat later date.
Accounts of the dreams, revelations, and supernatural feats of
the new prophets were published and eagerly read ; and
besides these the epidemic of superstition produced a specu
lative literature of its own. One of these works, composed
by a Polish Jew, Naphtali ben Jakob Elchanan, who had
caught the Kabbalistic contagion in Palestine, and published
at Amsterdam in 1648, is described by Dr. Gratz l as not
containing a single rational sentence : < yet leading rabbis of

1 Gratz, x. 131.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. ir

Germany and Poland accepted this puddle of nauseous
blasphemy as a fountain of divine wisdom.' If these were the
studies in favour among Spinoza's teachers and companions,
we can hardly wonder at the tone of something like contempt
in which he generally speaks of current Jewish opinion.

Such, then, was the society into which Spinoza was born.
The accustomed course of education was almost if not alto
gether confined to the Hebrew language and literature. With
these, therefore, Spinoza was early made familiar, and at the
age of fifteen he had gone so far in the study of the Talmud as
to be one of Rabbi Morteira's most promising pupils. In the
advanced classes of the Amsterdam school he had the oppor
tunity of mastering the philosophical writings of the golden age
of modern Jewish learning, the commentaries of Maimonides
and Ibn Ezra. The probable effect of these on the develop
ment of his thought will be more fully spoken of in a later
place. Enough to say here that he found in the hints and
questionings of these men much more than his teachers
expected him to find or were themselves capable of find
ing.

Secular learning and accomplishments had to be sought
in other quarters. The elements of Latin were imparted to
Spinoza by a German master whose name is not known ; he
continued the study with Francis van den Ende,1 a physician
as well as a man of letters, whose high reputation as a teacher
was qualified by the suspicion that he taught his pupils free-
thinking as well as Latin. The charge may have been true,
but it may just as well have been a mere popular inference
from the known fact that he was a proficient in the natural
sciences. So much is certain, and it is probable that he
communicated this part of his knowledge, no less than that
which he specially professed to teach, to those who showed

1 His name is given in the documents relating to the Chevalier de Rohan's
plot as Francis Affinius van den Enden. Se« Clement, Episodes de f Histoire de
France, Paris, 1859.

12 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

themselves apt for it : for Spinoza's works afford unmistak
able evidence of thorough and sound instruction in physical
science, and more especially physiology, which cannot well
have been acquired at a later time of his life ; not that he
makes any great display of knowledge, but that with many
occasions for mistakes he commits few or none. As to Latin,
at all events, Van den Ende's charge was efficiently per
formed. Spinoza mastered it completely, not indeed accord
ing to the fine and exacting standards of later scholarship,
but more completely in one sense, for he made it a living
instrument of thought. His language is not what we call
classical, but it is handled with perfect command and per
fectly adapted to its ends. At the same time it appears by
quotations and allusions that he was fairly well at home with
the Latin classics. His knowledge of Greek was more
limited, and by his own account not critical.1 Of modern
languages he knew French, German, and Italian, besides
Portuguese and Spanish, one or both of which were native to
him. It appears from evidences made public early in the last
century, but afterwards lost sight of until quite recently, that
he always regarded Dutch as a foreign language, and wrote
it only with difficulty. Such little circumstances help us to
realize the self-contained isolation in which the Hebrew com
munity must have dwelt even among well-wishers.

It was perhaps through his intercourse with Van den
Ende that Spinoza became acquainted with the writings of
Giordano Bruno and Descartes. As to Descartes, indeed,
explanation may be dispensed with ; no young man with a
philosophical turn of mind could help reading him. But as
to Giordano Bruno, if one assumes (on the grounds to be
mentioned hereafter) that Spinoza had read him, one may be
fairly called on to assign the occasion for it. Giordano Bruno
would not otherwise have come naturally in Spinoza's way ;
his theories were scarcely less abhorrent to Jews and Pro-

1 Tract. Theol.-Pol. cap. x. ad fin.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 13

testants than to Catholics. But it is quite possible that Van '
den Ende may have more or less cherished Bruno in private,
and discussed him with a select few of his learners. This
would have been just the kind of study to procure for Van
den Ende the alarming reputation handed down to us by
Colerus. Besides his graver pursuits Spinoza contrived to
acquire considerable skill in drawing : he filled a book with
portrait sketches, many of them being of distinguished per
sons. This book was at one time in the possession of Colerus,
but there is no further trace of it.

There is a story that Van den Ende was assisted in his
teaching by a daughter, of singular wit, learning, and accom
plishments. Spinoza, the story goes, was among her pupils,
and from a pupil became a lover. But he had a rival in a
fellow-pupil named Kerkering, who finally won the lady's
hand by the help of a valuable pearl necklace. Now it is true
that Van den Ende had a daughter named Clara Maria, who
married Theodore Kerkkrinck (such is the authentic form of
the name). The date of the marriage, however, has been
ascertained by Van Vloten to be 16/1 (the year when Van
den Ende left Holland), and it appears by the register that the
bride was twenty-seven years old. Now Spinoza was excom
municated and left Amsterdam in 1656. Clara Maria van
den Ende was therefore eleven or twelve years old at the latest
time when Spinoza could have been her father's pupil, and the
tale of the students' rivalry and the pearl necklace must be
dismissed. Kerkkrinck was a physician, who published works
on medicine, anatomy and chemistry, and earned a consider
able scientific reputation, so that the match was in itself a
natural one enough for Van den Ende's daughter. The,
question remains whether the tale of Spinoza's love for her is
absolutely without foundation. There is no reason whatever
to suppose that Spinoza did not keep up his acquaintance
with Van den Ende in the visits which we know that he
made from time to time to Amsterdam ; and thus we have

,4 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

occasion and room enough for a friendship extending into
Klaartje's riper years, which may have passed into a serious
inclination. A romantic affection we cannot ascribe to
Spinoza at this time : it would be too much out of keeping
with all his habits and character; and one may shrewdly
suspect that his inclination never in truth got beyond a
hypothetical stage. He was likely enough to be rallied by
host or friends on his hermit life, and not unlikely to put them
off with some such answer as that, if he married a wife, it
should be Van den Ende's daughter. A speech or two of
this kind would be ample foundation for the story given by
Colerus, and a simple confusion of dates would do the rest.

Yet there is one chance left if we are minded to hold fast
to the solitary piece of romance that can be suggested in
Spinoza's life. Nothing forbids us to suppose that at the
earlier time there sprang up some half ideal, half childish
affection between Spinoza and Clara van den Ende ; there is
no violation of possibility in conceiving her as standing to
him in a relation like that of Beatrice to Dante. As far as
ages go the probability is even greater than in Dante's case ;
so that, unless we join ourselves to those over-curious persons
who would allegorize away the Vita Nuova, we have a fair
precedent enough. Beatrice was nine years old, Dante him
self only ten, when the ' glorious lady of his soul ' first
showed herself to his eyes, and the word came to him, Ecce
deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi. Spinoza was
not a poet, some one will say. No, but he was a mystic at
the time in question, which for this purpose will do at least as
well. But I throw out this merely for the chance of anyone
finding comfort in it. As a hypothesis it seems to me much
less probable than the other ; and even if the facts had been as
suggested, Spinoza was not the man to be very communicative
about them. The truth is that we have no positive evidence
at all. We have only a story which, as it stands, cannot
possibly be true, and which does not rest on any satisfactory

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 15

authority. The absence of any apparent motive for inventing
the whole of it raises a certain presumption that it contains in
a more or less distorted form elements of genuine fact,
derived from statements made by Spinoza himself. But what
those elements may be we have no means of determining.

As to Van den Ende himself, one is sorry to know that
he came to a bad end. In his old age he settled in France,
and had been there only a few years when he was drawn into
the conspiracy of the Chevalier de Rohan and La Treau-
mont, partly by working on his patriotism with hopes that the
affair would turn to the profit of the Netherlands, partly
by flattering his speculative fancy with dreams of a Utopian
republic to be established on the ruins of the French
monarchy. A general rising in Normandy was to be
supported by a descent of the Dutch fleet : the admiral,
Cornelius Tromp, was fully prepared to take his part, and
long hovered on the French coast awaiting the signal; which
never came. But the conspiracy, though carefully planned,
was hollow from the first ; it was a venture of disappointed
and desperate personal ambitions. It was discovered before
any part of it could be put in execution, and its leaders paid
the usual penalty of unsuccessful conspirators. Van den Ende
was hanged at Paris on November 27, 1674.

So much is known of Spinoza for the first twenty-three
years of his life. Not long after he had fully attained man's
estate the elders of his people began to remark in him an
unwonted freedom of discourse^ and possibly some laxity in
ceremonial observances which would of itself have sufficed as
an ostensible ground of censure. One anecdote of this time,
plausible enough to be worth repeating, has come down to
us.1 Two fellowT-students, it is said, questioned Spinoza
closely on theology ; he put them off with general reference
to the authority of Moses and the Prophets as sufficient for all

1 This is from Lucas ; in other words we may give ic just so much credit as
it appears on the face of it to deserve.

,6 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

true Israelites. But as far as their authority goes, answered
one of his companions, I cannot find any such thing as that
God is incorporeal, the soul immortal, or angels real beings.
What say you, then, to these matters ? Spinoza replied that
he could see no objection in point of orthodoxy to holding
that God has a body,1 or that angels are mere apparitions
created for the special occasion of their ministry (for which,
indeed, or for something very like it, there is Talmudic
authority : a circumstance likely enough to be known to
Spinoza and overlooked by his questioners), and that the
Scriptures use soul as a pure synonym of life, without saying
any thing' about immortality. The two friends were only half
satisfied ; but Spinoza, while he promised to give them fuller
explanations another time, contrived not to find any oppor
tunity of renewing the discourse. We have no trustworthy
or distinct account of the events that led to Spinoza's rupture
with the congregation ; but certain it is that in the early part of
the year 1656 it was considered by Morteira and his colleague
that action of a decided kind must be taken.

It has already been remarked that the persecuted of Spain
and Portugal had brought a leaven of persecuting zeal to their
new asylum. But in this case reasons of secular policy were
potent counsellors to the same effect. The Jewish community
was a kind of state within a state, a society foreign in religion,
language, and manners to its hosts. To expose themselves
to the charge of fostering novelties in speculation might well
have been a serious danger to them. As prudent governors
of their household, it behoved the chief men to suffer no
more scandals within it like that of Da Costa. And Spinoza's
particular novelties might be thought eminently fitted to
bring them into trouble. He busied himself with Descartes,
and the Synod of Dort (not the first and famous, but a second
one) had just condemned Cartesianism. The best way would
be to make things quiet while it was yet time ; the next best,

1 Compare Hobbes's arguments on this point.

THE LIFE OF STINOZA. I7

if the erratic member could not be brought to take the fitting
measure of heed, at least in his public ways, was to cut him
off at once and disclaim all responsibility for him. Accord-/
ingly the way of compromise was first tried, and an annuity]
of 1000 florins was offered to Spinoza as the price of apparent]
conformity. This however was positively declined. The
next step } was to summon Spinoza before the congregation
and inflict on him the first degree of ecclesiastical censure, the
lower excommunication, which excluded the offender for
thirty days from the society of the faithful, and was intended
to operate as a serious invitation to repentance.

During the period of suspense which followed, Spinoza's
life was aimed at by an unknown enemy, presumably some
fanatic outrunning the zeal of his masters, or thinking himself
a divinely appointed messenger to rebuke their tardiness in
defending the faith by a striking example. This man set
upon Spinoza with a dagger one evening as he was leaving
the Portuguese synagogue.2 But he avoided the blow in
time, and it pierced only his coat, which he afterwards kept
in the same condition as a memorial. Being warned by this
attack that Amsterdam was no longer a safe place for him,
he betook himself to the hospitality of a friend who dwelt a
little way out of the city, on the Ouwerkerk road. His host
belonged to the small dissenting community of Remonstrants
or Collegiants. Here, under the roof of heretics anathe
matized by the Synod of Dort, he learnt the final decision of
the Jewish congregation on the charge of heresy against
himself. The sentence was pronounced on July 27, 1656, in
the Portuguese language, and its effect is as follows : —

1 Our data for these events are still meagre, and their order in time uncertain :
but we cannot doubt that a lesser excommunication preceded the final one. See
Gratz, x. 175. Lucas gives what purport to be details of the earlier proceedings,
but in his usual confused manner and with improbable circumstances.

2 I follow Colerus's account as the best supported and most probable. Diffi
culties have been raised about the incident : they are discussed in Van Vloten's
Levensbode, ix. 419.

1 8 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

1 The chiefs of the council do you to wit, that having long
known the evil opinions and works of Baruch de Espinoza,
they have endeavoured by divers ways and promises to with
draw him from his evil ways, and they are unable to find a
remedy, but on the contrary have had every day more know
ledge of the abominable heresies practised and taught by him,
and of other enormities committed by him, and have of this
many trustworthy witnesses, who have deposed and borne
witness in the presence of the said Espinoza, and by whom he
stood convicted ; all which having been examined in the
presence of the elders, it has been determined with their
assent that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated
and cut off from the nation of Israel ; and now he is hereby
excommunicated with the following anathema : —

' With the judgment of the angels and of the saints we
excommunicate, cut off, curse, and anathematize Baruch de
Espinoza, with the consent of the elders and of all this holy
congregation, in the presence of the holy books : by the 613
precepts which are written therein, with the anathema where
with Joshua cursed Jericho, with the curse which Elisha laid
upon the children, and with all the curses which are written
in the law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night.
Cursed be he in sleeping and cursed be he in waking, cursed
in going out and cursed in coming in. The Lord shall not
pardon him, the wrath and fury of the Lord shall henceforth
be kindled against this man, and shall lay upon him all the
curses which are written in the book of the law. The Lord
shall destroy his name under the sun, and cut him off for his
undoing from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the
firmament which are written in the book of the law. But ye
that cleave unto the Lord your God, live all of you this day.

' And we warn you, that none may speak with him by word
of mouth nor by writing, nor show any favour to him, nor be
under one roof with him, nor come within four cubits of him,
nor read any paper composed or written by him.'

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. lg

From the terms of the excommunication something, but
not much, may be gathered as to the form which the accusa
tion had assumed. It is not on the face of it a condemnation
for mere speculative opinions ; indeed such a condemnation
would not be warranted by Jewish law. The ' heresies practised
and taught ' (' horrendas heresias que praticava e ensinava ')
point at some active attempt to spread his opinions, and the
mention of * other enormities ' on Spinoza's part (' ynormes
obras que obrava ') probably refers to breaches of ceremonial
rules, and is not (though to an English reader it looks so at
first sight) a meaningless addition like the alia enormia of
old-fashioned English pleadings.

Thus was Baruch de Spinoza made an outcast from
Israel, and cut off from his own people and from his father's
house. The ties of kindred, ties which for that people have ever
been of exceeding strength and sanctity, were for him severed
beyond recall. The bond of fellowship among Israelites is of
strength and sanctity only less than that of actual kindred ;
and this also was at once and irrevocably dissolved. The
excommunicated Jew became as it were a masterless man ;
he had no title by which he could call upon either Jew or
Christian to stand by him or answer for him. If it is a good
preparation for philosophy to be alone in the world, the need
ful discipline came upon Spinoza with terrible completeness.
It is hardly possible for men at this time, either in Spinoza's
country or in our own, to realize the full effect of such a blow.
But Spinoza never faltered under it : the passionate weakness
of Uriel da Costa was far from his nature. ' This compels me/
he said on receiving the news, ' to nothing which I should not
otherwise have done.' Thus it would seem that he held him
self to have renounced the synagogue of his own motion rather
than to have been driven from it ; and the title of a defence
which he wrote in Spanish and sent to the elders points the
same way. This paper itself has never been found ; ! it is

1 Unless it was identical with or developed into the polemic against the Jews

c 2

20 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

supposed, however, to have contained some foreshadowing of
the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus/ It is said that the chiefs
of the synagogue were not content with inflicting their utmost
ecclesiastical penalty. They represented to the civil authori
ties that Spinoza was a dangerous person ; their request was
backed by the Reformed clergy, and a sentence of banishment
for a short time was pronounced against Spinoza, who must
have already left the city. But sentences of this kind against
men who have forestalled them by absence are common
enough in history. The incident does not rest on good autho
rity,1 but the fact that similar proceedings had been taken in
the case of Da Costa renders it not improbable in itself.
From this time forth, in any case, we have to think of Spinoza
as removed from Amsterdam and the associations of his
youth. He marked the severance himself by disusing his
Hebrew name Baruch, and substituting for it the Latin equi
valent Benedict. Only once more in his lifetime do we hear
anything of dealings with his family. Spinoza became en
titled upon the death of his father to share the inheritance
/with his two sisters. The sisters disputed his title, presum-
I ably under the belief that an excommunicated heretic would
I have no part in the estate of a faithful Israelite. Spinoza has
left on record his opinion that in a state where just laws are
in force it is not only the right of every citizen, but his duty
towards the common weal, to resist injustice to himself, lest
peradventure evil men should find profit in their evil-doing.
In his own case, then, he acted on this principle : the civil
law was just, whether on the high ground of indifference to

mentioned by Rieuwertz, the publisher of the Opera Posthuma, to the German
traveller Stolle as existing in MS. and having been in his possession. See
Ginsberg's edition of the Ethics, p. 20.

1 It is in Lucas, with confusion of time and circumstance, as usual. Colerus
knows nothing of it, and Spinoza's tone of admiration and deference for the civil
powers of his country (in the Tractatus Theologico- Politicus) is likewise against
it. The precedent of Da Costa turns the scale in favour of giving it a place in
the text.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA, 21

theological strife, or, as is more likely, because Judaism was
only a tolerated religion ; and Spinoza's claim to share with
his sisters was made good. But, having established his rights,
he did not choose to take any material advantage by them.
When the partition came to be effected he gave up to his
sisters everything but one bed : ' qui etait en verite fort bon,'
says Colerus in the French version.

Spinoza was now dependent on his own work for a liveli
hood. In compliance with the Rabbinical precept whicl
commands every man to learn some handicraft, and guided
by his philosophical and scientific temper, he had acquirec
the art of making and polishing lenses for optical instruments
Perhaps a desire to imitate the example of Descartes, who
had likewise made himself a practical optician, may have
entered into Spinoza's motives. At this time his admiration
of Descartes was probably at its height. The art enabled
him to earn an income, slender indeed, but sufficient for his
limited wants, and a reputation for skill and knowledge of
optics which preceded his fame as a philosopher. The lenses
made by him were sought after, and those left undisposed of
at his death fetched a high price. It was as an opticianJ
moreover, that he made the acquaintance of Huygens and)
Leibnitz. In 1671 Leibnitz wrote to consult him on certain
optical questions, and his letter addresses Spinoza as a critic
of recognized authority. It was believed by Spinoza's friends
that but for his early death he would have made some con
siderable contribution to the science; as it was, the only
work of that kind which he completed was a small treatise on
the Rainbow, long supposed to have been lost. It was in
truth published at the Hague in 1687, and has been found
and reprinted in our own time by Dr. Van Vloten.1 We are
also told that Spinoza had formed the plan of writing a
concise treatise on Algebra (' breviori et magis intelligibili
methodo '), and other unspecified works.

1 The original copy, believed to b<» unique, is in the Royal Library at the Hague.

22 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

It appears that Spinoza stayed with his Remonstrant friend
till the end of 1660 or beginning of 1 66 1, when they removed
together to the village of Rijnsburg, near Leyden,then the head
quarters of the sect. The house where they lived is still stand
ing, and .the road bears to this day the name of ' Spinoza Lane.'
The Remonstrants were by this time practically tolerated,
but had no regular clergy or public ministrations. There
could therefore be no outward evidence that a person living
among them, and not being a member of any other religious
community, was not one of themselves. Hence the report
that Spinoza had become a Christian would very naturally
arise. It gained currency enough to be thought by Colerus
worth an express contradiction.

The meagre information given by Colerus and others
of the philosopher's movements and occupations in after years
is partly filled in by his letters, of which we possess only the
selection made, unhappily with a far too sparing hand, by
the editors of his posthumous works, and a few more which
have been discovered in the orphan asylum at Amsterdam
formerly belonging to the Collegiants. Spinoza paid frequent
visits to the Hague, where he became well known in the
society of men of letters ; and it is clear that as time went
on he found more and more content in his entertainment
there, for in 1664 he moved again to Voorburg, which is
a suburb of the Hague, and in 1670 to the Hague itself,
where he spent the rest of his life.

In 1663 we find that Spinoza had already sketched out
some of the leading ideas of his metaphysical system, sub
stantially in the same form in which they eventually appeared
in the ' Opera Posthuma,' and had entrusted his papers to a
number of his younger friends at Amsterdam. They had
formed a sort of philosophical club,1 at whose meetings the

1 Perhaps a section or offshoot of the society Nil volentibus arduum (it was and
is the practice in Holland for the motto of a society to be used as the name of the
society itself), of which Dr. L. Meyer is known to have been an active member.
(Van Vloten, Bened. de Spinoza, p. 29. )

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.

members took it in turns to read out and comment on
Spinoza's manuscript. If after discussion any point re
mained obscure, a note was made of the difficulty, and one of
the company would write to Spinoza for explanation. Such
a letter is extant, written by Sjmonjde_yries, a young student
of medicine, and of much pr^rr^eT^Ho had conceived for
Spinoza an intellectual attachment which grew into a warm
friendship. He would willingly have shown his gratitude to
his master by substantial benefactions ; we are told of a gift
of 2000 florins offered by him to Spinoza and declined.

Spinoza's life, as we shall see, was not a robust one ; but
that of his young disciple seems to have been yet frailer, for
he died in Spinoza's lifetime, and not so unexpectedly but
that he had time to form the design of making Spinoza his
heir, and to be dissuaded from it by his friend's own entreaties.
De Vries had a brother living, and Spinoza pressed upon him
the duty of thinking first of his own kindred. The master
prevailed with the disciple against his own interest, and the
bulk of the estate was left by De Vries to his brother, charged
however with a sufficient annuity for Spinoza's maintenance.
Even this was accepted only in part. The heir offered to fix
the amount at 500 florins ; but Spinoza pretended that it wa
too much, and refused to take more than 300. De Vrics's
letter to Spinoza shows all the generous enthusiasm of a
learner in presence of a beloved teacher.

' 1 have long desired,' he says, ' an occasion to be with you, but
weather and the hard winter have not allowed me. Sometimes I
complain of my fate in being removed from you by a distance that
' keeps us so much apart. Happy, most happy, is that companion whc
dwells with you under the same roof, and who can at all times, dining,
supping, or walking, hold discourse with you of the most excellent
matters. But though we are so widely separated in the body, yet you
have constantly been present to my mind, especially when I apply
myself to your writings.'

Spinoza's answer approves the plan of the society, and

24 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

gives the desired explanations. To De Vries's complaint of
their long separation he replies as follows :—

' Your long continued absence has been no less disagreeable to
me than to you ; but meanwhile I am glad that my exercises (lucubra-
tiunculae] are of use to you and our friends. For thus I speak, with
you while we are away from one another. As to my fellow-lodger,
you need not envy hirq. There is no one I like less, or with whom I
have been more cautious •. so that I must warn you and all our
friends not to communicate my opinions to him till he has come to
riper years. He is still too childish and inconstant, and cares for
novelty more than truth. Yet I hope he will amend these youthful
failings some years hence ; indeed I am nearly sure of it, so far as I
can judge from his disposition ; and so his general character moves
me to be friendly with him.'

It appears that Spinoza's expectations of this young man
were too sanguine. He is identified by plausible conjecture
with one Albert Burgh, who many years afterwards was re
ceived into the Church of Rome, and on that occasion
favoured Spinoza with an extraordinary letter, of which a
specimen will come before us hereafter.

A solitary letter of 1665 containing some personal details
has been lately discovered,1 An allusion to the fleet then
fitting out against England, and the mention of a journey of
Spinoza's to Amsterdam, of which we have other indications,
fix the date towards the end of May, or in the first days of
June. The person addressed is supposed to be the 'J. B.,'
to whom a letter of the following year (Ep. 42) was written,
and who is identified with the Dr. J. Bresser mentioned else
where in Spinoza's correspondence. Spinoza complains of
having missed him both when he went to Amsterdam and
when he came back to Voorburg. He then begs his friend
to be diligent in philosophy while he is young and has time,
and not to be afraid of writing to him freely.

* I have before now suspected, and I am pretty sure, that you

1 Ep 423. Van Vloten, Suppl. p. 303.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 25

have some unreasonable distrust of your own parts, and fear to ask
or propound something unworthy of a scholar. It is not fit for me
to praise your talents to your face ; but if you fear my showing your
letters to others who may ridicule you, I give you my promise on
this point that I will scrupulously keep them, and will communicate
them to no mortal, unless with your leave. On these terms you may
begin your correspondence with me, unless indeed you doubt my
good faith, which I do not suppose possible. I trust to hear your
opinion of the matter by your first letter, and to have with it some of
the conserve of red roses, as you promised, though I am now much
better. After I left this [for Amsterdam] I once let myself blood,
yet the fever did not cease (though I was somewhat brisker even
before the blood-letting, I think by the change of air), but I was
twice or thrice troubled with a tertian ; but by dint of good diet at
last I drove it out and sent it packing ; where it has gone I know
not, but I am taking care that it shall not come back.'

He then promises to send ' the third part of my philo
sophy,' or a considerable part of it, as far as the 8oth proposi
tion or thereabouts. As the third part of the ' Ethics,' as it
now stands, contains nothing like that number, the third and
fourth parts must in the first draft have formed but one.
He ends by asking for news of the fleet.

This is the only letter preserved to us in which Spinoza
says anything about himself as distinct from his works, and it
is preserved only by chance : the editors of the ' Opera Post-
huma,' adhering rigidly to the principle of selecting only what
illustrated the philosophy, had put it aside as ' of no value.' l
Ten years later we hear of Dr. Bresser as returned to Amster
dam from a journey to Cleves, and having brought a cask of
beer as a present for Spinoza.2

Another constant friend of Spinoza's was Henry Olden
burg, well known in the scientific history of England as the
first secretary of the Royal Society and the intimate friend of
Robert Boyle. He had settled in this country, where he spent
the best part of his life, in 1653 ; and in the course of a

1 Adscripserunt enim : 'is van geender waarde. ' (Van Vloten, /. c.}

2 Ep. 65a, Supp. p. 316.

26 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

journey on the Continent he visited Spinoza at Rijnsburg and
formed an acquaintance with him, which, though opportunities
of meeting were few, was assiduously kept up by correspond
ence. Oldenburg had, within discreet limits, a lively interest
in philosophy, and in the earlier years of his intercourse with
Spinoza was always pressing him not to keep back his know
ledge from the world. In the same letter in which he informs
Spinoza of the incorporation of the Royal Society, Oldenburg
thus exhorts him to boldness :—

• I would by all means advise you not to begrudge to men of
letters the ripe fruits of your learning in philosophy and theology, but
let them go forth into the world, whatever grumblings may proceed
from petty theologians. Your commonwealth is most free, and
therein the philosopher should work most freely. Your own prudence
will counsel you to publish your thoughts and opinions with as little
ostentation as may be ; I would have you, for the rest, commit the
issue to fortune. Come, then, my friend, cast out all fear of stirring
up against you the pigmies of our time ; too long have we made
sacrifices to their ignorance and trifling scruples ; let us spread our
sails to the wind of true knowledge, and search out the secrets of
nature more thoroughly than has yet been done. In your country
it will be safe, I should think, to print your reflections ; nor is any
offence from them to be feared among men of learning. If such
are your patrons and promoters — and such, I answer for it, you will
find — why should you fear the detraction of the ignorant ? ' l

Writing some little time afterwards, in the spring of 1663,
Oldenburg presses Spinoza yet more urgently to complete his
work then in hand.

' Permit me to ask you/ he says, ' whether you have finished that
important essay in which you treat of the origin of things and their
dependence from their first cause, as well as of the amendment of our
understanding ? Surely, my excellent friend, I believe that nothing
can be published more pleasant or acceptable to men of learn ing and
discernment than such a treatise as yours. This is what a man of
your wit and temper should regard, more than what pleases theo
logians of the present age and fashion, for by them truth is less

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 27

regarded than their own advantage. I adjure you, therefore, by the
bond of our friendship, by every duty of multiplying and spreading
abroad the truth, not to withhold from us your writings on those
subjects. But if there is any reason more grave than I perceive
which hinders you from setting forth the work, I heartily beseech
you to be at the pains to give me a summary of it by letter ; and
by this service you shall know that you have earned a friend's
gratitude.' l

In the following letters these requests and exhortations
are repeated in even stronger terms. We collect that Olden
burg had some knowledge, though it was by no means exact,
of the * Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' of the treatise * De
Intellectus Emendatione,' which was never finished, and has
come down to us as a fragment, and perhaps of an early draft
of the ' Ethics.' Oldenburg's language seems to mix up the
different works, and his later conduct still more plainly shows
that he did not at this time know much of their contents.

He was abundantly valiant in counsel before he had
measured the risk ; but after the publication of the ' Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus' we find that his valour has all evaporated.
In 1675, when Spinoza thought of publishing the ' Ethics,'
Oldenburg's talk was no longer of spreading all sail and
defying the malice of theologians. Now he is all for caution
and conformity ; he again invokes friendship, but this time to
warn Spinoza against giving any sort of ground for attacks
upon religion and virtue. Not that he refuses to take some
copies of the book ; they may be consigned to a Dutch friend
in London for him, and he can doubtless find purchasers for
them ; but he would rather not have it talked about. And
when he learnt from Spinoza that the publication was
indefinitely put off, his expression of regret was, to say the
least, but lukewarm.2

In the earlier days of which we are now speaking Olden
burg was not unaided in his encouragement to Spinoza's

5 Ep. 8. 2 Epp. 18-20.

28 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

philosophical work. Boyle's name is joined once and again in
his messages of greeting and exhortation, and considerable
parts of these letters are taken up with communications on
questions of chemistry and pneumatics, conveyed through
Oldenburg, which amount in effect to a scientific correspond
ence between Spinoza and Boyle. They obviously knew and
esteemed one another's work ; but there is no trace of any
more direct intercourse.

The miseries of the great plague and of the war between
England and Holland are brought before us by a letter of
Oldenburg's in the autumn of 1665. He has no news yet of
a book about which Spinoza had asked him, ' because the
plague forbids almost all traffic ; besides which, this cruel war
brings in its train a very Iliad of mischiefs, and is like to leave
but little civility in the world.' The public meetings of the
Royal Society, he adds, are suspended by the danger of the
times ; but the individual fellows are not unmindful of their
quality, and pursue their experiments in private. Indeed
meetings were shortly afterwards held at Oxford, whither
several of the members had followed the Court.1 But the war
did not, for some time at least, interrupt the correspondence,
nor abate Oldenburg's curiosity for information.

In December 1665 he writes of a wide-spread report that
the dispersed nation of Israel was about to return to its own
country. The news not having been confirmed from Con
stantinople, Oldenburg refuses credit to it, but would like to
know how it has been received in the Jewish society of
Amsterdam. The allusion is to the stir produced throughout
the Jewish world by the impostor Sabbatai Zevi, of Smyrna,
who proclaimed himself as the Messiah or something more,
and obtained a large following not only in the Levant but in
all the synagogues of Europe. In London the believers in
his mission were testifying to their faith by laying heavy
odds that Sabbatai Zevi would be the crowned and anointed

1 Epp. i3a, 14.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 29

king of Jerusalem within two years.1 But within an even
shorter time, so far from being crowned at Jerusalem, he was
a prisoner at Constantinople, and completed the discomfiture
of those who had committed themselves to him by turning
Mahometan : a step which, decisive as it seemed against his
pretensions, was ineffectual to sober a certain number of
enthusiasts. The delusion survived in various forms for at
least two or three years longer.2 One would give something
to know what were Spinoza's reflections on seeing the ortho
dox elders who had excommunicated him (for Isaac Aboab
was carried away with the rest) fall an easy prey to a new
heresy of the most gross and vulgar kind. But his answer to
Oldenburg's inquiry is unluckily not preserved : we know not,
indeed, if any answer were sent, for at this point there ensues a
break of ten years in the correspondence of the two friends.

In 1663 Spinoza published the only work to which he I
ever set his name ; the origin of it is described by himself in '
one of his letters to Oldenburg. He had prepared a summary
of the second part of Descartes' ' Principles of Philosophy '
for the use of a pupil whom he did not choose to make fully
acquainted with his own opinions, probably the young man
of whom we have already heard. Certain of Spinoza's friends
became curious about this manual, and desired him to treat
the first part of Descartes' work also in the same manner.
This was done within a fortnight, and Spinoza was then
urged to publish the book, which he readily agreed to do
upon condition that one of his friends would revise the
language, and write a preface explaining that the author did
not agree with all the Cartesian doctrine set forth by him in
the text.

1 Gratz, x. 226, 229.

2 ' And yet most of them affirm that Sabatai is not turn'd Turk, but his
Shadow only remains on Earth, and walks with a white Head, and in the habit of
a Mahometan : But that his natural Body and Soul are taken into Heaven,
there to reside until the time appointed for the accomplishment of these Wonders. '
— ' The Counterfeit Messiah of the Jews at Smyrna, 1666' (in Two Journeys to
Jerusalem, &c., collected by R. Burton, London, 1738).

30 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

This task was undertaken by Dr. Meyer, and the book
appeared at Amsterdam in the same year ; in the following
one a Dutch translation was issued by the same publisher.
The contents were the exposition of two parts of Des
cartes' Principles, a fragment of a third part, and an
appendix of ' Metaphysical Reflections/ professedly written
from a Cartesian point of view, but often giving signifi
cant hints of the author's real divergence from Descartes.
Spinoza took little trouble in the matter himself, and
attached no value to the publication except as a means
of preparing the way for more important things. ' On this
opportunity,' he writes to Oldenburg, 'we may find some
persons, holding the highest places in my country '—meaning
the De Witts, who certainly were among Spinoza's visitors at
Rijnsburg and the Hague — ' who will be anxious to see those
other writings which I acknowledge for my own, and will
therefore take such order that I can give them to the world
without danger of any inconvenience. If it so happens, I doubt
not that I shall soon publish something ; if not, I will rather
hold my peace than thrust my opinions upon men against the
will of my country and make enemies of them.' The design
of Spinoza and his friends was but partly effected. The book
on Descartes excited considerable attention and interest, but
the untoward course of public events in succeeding years was
unfavourable to a liberal policy, and deprived Spinoza of the
support for which he had looked.

We may here make a note in passing of two facts which

are established by this exposition of Descartes, and which have

been often overlooked. One is that if Spinoza had ever been

a disciple of Descartes, he had completely ceased to be so by

the time when he was giving lessons in philosophy to Albert

Burgh. The other is that he did not suppose the geometrical

1 form of statement and argument to be an infallible method of

1 arriving at philosophical truth ; for in this work he made use

!of it to set forth opinions with which he himself did not agree,

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 31

and proofs with which he was not satisfied. We do not know
to what extent Spinoza's manual was accepted or taken
into use by Cartesians, but its accuracy as an exposition of
Descartes is beyond question. One of the many perverse
criticisms made on Spinoza by modern writers is that he did
not understand the fundamental proposition cogito ergo sum.1
In fact he gives precisely the same explanation of it that is
given by Descartes himself in the Meditations.

The next notable event in Spinoza's life is the publica
tion of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus : ' the full title, as
Englished by an early translator (1689), runs thus :—

'A treatise partly theological and partly political, con
taining some few discourses to prove that the liberty of phi-j
losophizing (that is, making use of natural reason) may be
allowed without any prejudice to piety, or to the peace of
any commonwealth ; and that the loss of public peace and
religion itself must necessarily follow, where such a liberty
of reasoning is taken away.'

The scope of the book is political and practical, not */
speculative. The final thesis to which all its apparatus of
criticism leads up is that ' in a free commonwealth it should^
be lawful for every man to think what he will and speak what
he thinks : ' a proposition which, with due reservations in
behalf of decency and civil order — and the reservations were
in no wise neglected by Spinoza — has now become common
learning for the greater part of the civilized world. It looks
to our modern eyes infinitely less bold than the arguments
by which Spinoza maintained it. In order to gain his desired
foundation for the freedom of speculative opinion, he plunges
into an investigation of the nature of prophecy, the principles
of Scriptural interpretation, and the true provinces of theology
and philosophy, anticipating with wonderful grasp and insight
almost every principle, and not a few of the results, of the

1 Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, Descartes, et Spinoza, Paris, 1862, p. 75 : ' il n'a
jamais compris le cogito ergo sum.'

32 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

school of historical criticism which has arisen within the last
two or three generations ; a school which, through Lessing
and his circle, is connected by direct descent with Spinoza.
Taking the whole contents of the treatise together, we
cannot be surprised that even in the United Provinces, then
the freest country in the world, it was thought needful to
issue it without the name of the author and with that of
a fictitious printer at Hamburg. The tone and form are
conciliatory, but with the kind of high-handed conciliation
that exasperates. Much hard hitting will be taken without
complaint in downright argument ; but few men can endure
to be confuted from their own premisses by an adversary who
never fully shows his hand. It is more tolerable for a dog
matist to be confronted with novelties in speculative opinion
than to be told that speculative opinions are in themselves
indifferent ; and the truth that conduct does not depend on
speculation, though exemplified abundantly by all generations
of men, is still unfamiliar and unwelcome to most of us. It
is just to this unwelcome truth that Spinoza bears a testi
mony of unsurpassed power in the ' Tractatus Theologico-
Politicus ; ' but if anything more were needed to explain the
storm of polemic that burst upon him, there is yet more to
come. We have said that Spinoza does not omit the neces
sary reservations in favour of the civil power ; we must add
that he makes them not only freely but amply, so amply that
he has been charged by some of his modern censors with
going about to deify mere brute force. He appeals, more
over, from the Churches to the State, as representing the
worldly common sense of the lay mind. He looks to an
enlightened civil magistrate to deliver men from the barren
clamour of anathemas, almost as an Indian heretic vexed by
the Brahmans may look to the impartial secular arm of the
British Government. ' This is the conclusion of the whole
matter for him ; a fervent appeal to the State to save us from
the untoward generation of metaphysical Article-makers ; '

THE LIFE OF SPfA'OZA. .-J3

so Mr. Arnold sums it up in his admirable essay.1 If the
English translator had been minded to give the book a
second title, after the manner of English controversialists of
that day, he might fairly have called it ' Erastianism not
Unscriptural.' Now it is a great error to suppose that the
metaphysical Article-makers are stupider undiscerning people.
Whatever qualities may be desirable in those who are to
believe articles after they are made, a great deal of energy
and acuteness have gone to the making of them ; and the
faculties thus employed are, as a rule, very sufficient to
perceive the drift of any new ideas that may imperil their
finished handiwork. In 1670 the generation of Article-makers
was mighty in the Netherlands, and still pretty fresh from
its great exercise at the Synod of Dort. It was fully on
the alert, and lost no time in showing itself equal to the
occasion. And the occasion was no common one, for the
attack was not only powerful, but vital. If there is anything
that ecclesiastical dogmatists of all parties are united in
hating with a perfect hatred, it is the Erastian view of the
relation of the State to religious differences.

Spinoza probably never disguised from himself the oppo
sition he would have to encounter. In 1671 he wrote thus to
his friend Jarig Jellis : —

* When Professor N. N. [Wittichius ?} 2 lately saw me, he told
me, among other things, how he had heard of my Theologico-
political treatise being translated into Dutch, and that a person whose
name he did not know was on the point of printing the translation.
I therefore earnestly entreat you to inquire diligently into the matter,
and stop the printing if it can be done. This request is not fronTme
alone, but also from many of my friends and acquaintance, who
would be sorry to see the book prohibited, as it certainly will be if it
appears in Dutch.'

It seems that Spinoza's wishes were attended to, for no

1 ' Spinoza and the Bible, ' in Essays in Criticism.

2 Van Vloten, Bened, de Spinoza, p. 81, note.

34 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Dutch version appeared until 1693,* some years after an
English one had been published in London. But the Synods
were already up in arms, and in the spring of 1671 addressed
a solemn complaint to the States-General concerning the
printing and publishing of divers ' Socinian and blasphemous
books, to wit, the books called "Bibliotheca Patrum Polonorum
quos unitarios vocant," the famous book of Hobbes called
" Leviathan," and moreover the book entitled " Philosophia
Sacrae Scripturae interpres," 2 as well as that called " Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus.'" In 1674 effect was given to this by
a formal prohibition of the book, which, either in anticipation
of such a measure, or in order to obtain a sale in Catholic
countries, had already been issued in a second edition with
various false title-pages, as of works on medicine or history.3
Rome was not far behind the Reformed churches in dili
gence. The ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' was ere long put
on the Index, and it still holds its place in the strangely mixed
company of that catalogue with many of the best and some
of the worst books of the world. But the celebrity which came
to Spinoza by reason of this publication was not altogether of
a disagreeable kind even in official quarters. When his treatise
had been some three years before the world he received an
invitation to the Chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg, written
by Professor Fabritius at the command of the Elector Pala
tine Charles Lewis, and couched in the most honourable
terms. The only hint of a restriction was in the following
sentence: 'You will have the largest freedom of speech in
philosophy, which the prince is confident that you will not
misuse to disturb the established religion.' Now it is hardly
possible to suppose that the Elector and his advisers were
unacquainted with the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ; ' and
if they were acquainted with its general purport, one is

1 Bibliografie, No. 17.

2 This was for a time erroneously attributed to Spinoza.

3 Bibliografie, Nos. 4-7. See Appendix B for the text of the ordinance.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 35

tempted to suspect that a phrase of such very mild caution
may have been inserted only as a matter of form ; especially
when we remember that established religion, as such, is
treated by Spinoza with great respect in the treatise itself.
The test seems almost framed to invite evasion.

But even the semblance of evasion was repugnant to
Spinoza's ideal of intellectual truthfulness. He answered the
invitation thus : —

' Had it ever been my desire to occupy a chair in any faculty, I
could have wished for no other than that which the Most Serene
Elector Palatine offers me by your hands ; and especially on account
of that freedom in philosophy which the prince is pleased to grant, to
say nothing of the desire I have long entertained to live under the
rule of a prince whose wisdom is the admiration of all men. But
since I have never been minded to give public lectures, I cannot
persuade myself to accept even this splendid opportunity, though I
have given long consideration to it. For I reflect, in the first place,
that I must give up philosophical research if I am to find time for
teaching a class. I reflect, moreover, that I cannot tell within what
bounds I ought to confine that philosophical freedom you mention
in order to escape any charge of attempting to disturb the established
religion. Religious dissensions arise not so much from the ardour of
men's zeal for religion itself as from their various dispositions and
love of contradiction, which leads them into a habit of decrying and
condemning everything, however justly it be said. Of this I have
already had experience in my private and solitary life ; much more,
then, should I have to fear it after mounting to this honourable con
dition. You see, therefore, that I am not holding back in the hope
of some better post, but for mere love of quietness, which I think I
can in some measure secure if I abstain from lecturing in public.
Wherefore I heartily beseech you to desire the Most Serene Elector
that I may be allowed to consider further of this matter.' l

The call to Heidelberg was in 1673. We have anticipated
the order of events to keep the philosophic side of Spinoza's
life distinct from the one point at which it was visibly touched
by the turmoil of public affairs. The misfortunes of the Nether-

Ep. 54.

36 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

lands in 1672 are the property of general history. Then took
place the sudden and overwhelming invasion in which ' the
king of France came down to Utrecht like a land flood ; ' l and
this war of insolent aggression, so far from uniting all parties in
resistance to the enemy, bred in the Commonwealth a passion
of panic that let loose the worst excesses of domestic faction.
The brothers De Witt, after lives spent in the service of their
country, were massacred by a frantic mob at the Hague.
Spinoza had been the friend of John de Witt ; he had
accepted a small pension from him, and is said to have been
consulted by him in affairs of State. It was not common
with Spinoza to be visibly disturbed or angry, but by this
event he was moved as by no other in his life. So much was
his wonted self-control shaken that he was hardly restrained
from expressing his indignation in public at the risk of his
life.2 He was shortly afterwards, as it fell out, to be exposed
to a similar risk, and for a not dissimilar cause.. While the
headquarters of the French army were at Utrecht the Prince
of Conde, then in command of it, invited Spinoza to visit him.
There is no reason to suppose any other motive than a genuine
desire to make the philosopher's acquaintance, still less to ima
gine (as one or two writers have done) a secret political errand.
Spinoza proceeded to Utrecht with a safe-conduct, but found
that Coride had been in the meantime called away. He waited
some days, but Conde's absence was prolonged, and he finally
returned to the Hague without having seen him. The French
officers who entertained Spinoza suggested that if he would
dedicate some work to Louis XIV. he might probably count
upon a pension ; but the proposal fell upon deaf ears. A man

1 Burnet, i. 321.

2 This was communicated by Spinoza himself to Leibnitz. 'J'ay passe
quelques heures apres diner avec Spinoza ; il me dit qu'il avait este porte, le jour
des massacres de MM. de Witt, de sortir la nuit et d'afficher quelque part, proche
du lieu, un papier oil il y aurait ttltimi barbarorum. Mais son hote luy avait ferme
la maison pour Pempecher de sortir, car il se serait expose aetre dechire.' MS.
note of Leibnitz, ap. Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, Descartes, et Spinoza, p. 74.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 37

who could scarcely be prevailed on to accept favours from his
friends at home was not likely to sell the reputation of
patronizing him to the ruler of a hostile country. But at the
Hague, men's minds being still in a ferment, sinister rumours
about Spinoza's journey had got abroad ; and he found him
self on his return the object of the most alarming and most
insidious charge that can fall upon a citizen in time of war.
The landlord feared an assault, if not the sack of the house,
from the populace among whom these reports were passing,
and who might at any moment resolve to lay violent hands
upon Spinoza as a French spy.

Spinoza, however, comforted his host with these words : —
' Fear nothing on my account ; I can easily justify myself ;
there are people enough, and of chief men in the country too,
who well know the motives of my journey. But, whatever
comes of it, so soon as the crowd make the least noise at your
door, I will go out and make straight for them, though they
should serve me as they have done the unhappy De Witts. I
am a good republican, and have never had any aim but the
honour and welfare of the State.'

The danger passed off; but Spinoza's conduct under it is
none the less worthy of admiration, for it was unquestionably a
very serious one. Even in our own times, notably in France
during the war of 1870, many innocent persons have been in
imminent peril, or have actually lost their lives, on far slighter
circumstances of supposed evidence than appeared in this
case. The incident also has its value in the light it throws on
the general esteem in which Spinoza then stood. For the con
sciousness, not merely of an innocent purpose, but of a cha
racter above the possibility of rational suspicion, was necessary
to make his visit to the French headquarters prudent or
justifiable ; and the authorities of his own country would
assuredly never have consented to it had they not felt
absolute confidence that the public good would in no way
suffer by it. It is indeed almost surprising that Spinoza, a

38 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

known friend of John de Witt, was in the existing state of
affairs allowed to go to the French camp at all.

Meanwhile Spinoza had been working at the Ethics, and
before the end of 1674 manuscript copies of the finished work
were in the hands of some of his friends.1 About the end of
July 1675 he made an excursion to Amsterdam in order to
arrange for the publication of the book. What befell him there
is best told in the words of his own letter to Oldenburg.

1 While I was busy with this, the report was spread everywhere
that a certain book of mine was in the press, wherein I endeavoured
to show that there was no God ; and this report found credence with
many. Whereupon certain theologians (themselves perhaps the authors
of it) took occasion to complain of me to the prince and the magis
trates ; moreover the stupid Cartesians, being supposed to side with
me and desiring to free themselves from that suspicion, were diligent
without ceasing in their execration of my doctrines and writings, and
are as diligent still. Having knowledge of these matters from trust
worthy persons, who likewise told me that the theologians were laying
plots against me on all sides, I determined to put off the publication
until I could see the issue of the affair, and then to signify my designs
to you. But the business inclines, as it seems, to the worse from day
to day, and I know not yet what I shall do.'

The result was that nothing more was done in Spinoza's
lifetime. He had shown that he could endure much in silence
rather than barter a jot of his freedom, but he did not choose
to be vexed with the petty warfare of clerical controversy ;
he must have felt the assurance that his work would live, and
that a few years sooner or later in the date of its appearance
would be indifferent. Can he have surmised that the few
years by which the publication was postponed would be a
mere fraction in comparison with the time during which his
thoughts were in the world but not perceived by it, misunder
stood by those who took notice of them, and unheeded by
those who might have understood ? Can he have even dreamt

* Epp. 63, 66.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 39

of the splendour with which his work was to shine forth to a
newer world after the period of eclipse, giving up its hidden
treasures of light and vital fire to inform the philosophy and
poetry of a mighty nation ? Such fame as Spinoza's is the
reward only of those who are above fame in their lives.

Spinoza had now but little more of life before him. For
many years he had suffered from consumption, aggravated per
haps by his work of glass-polishing. On Sunday, February 21,
1677, the end came unexpectedly, and almost suddenly.
Spinoza had indeed sent to Amsterdam for his friend and
physician Lewis Meyer ; but on the Saturday he had spent the
afternoon in talk with his hosts as usual ; and on the Sunday
he came down again in the morning, and spoke with them
before they went to hear Dr. Cordes, Colerus's predecessor in
the Lutheran church at the Hague. They were so far from
any immediate apprehensions that they went out again in the
afternoon, leaving him alone with Meyer. When they came
home they found, to their surprise, that Spinoza was no longer
alive. Dr. Meyer, the only person who was with him at the
last, returned forthwith to Amsterdam. He is charged by
Colerus with neglect of duty and rapacity ; or rather, in plain
terms, with making booty of a silver-handled knife and the
loose money in the room. But this is so grossly improbable
that we can only disregard it. Colerus may have not been
sorry to compensate himself for the admiration his native
honesty compelled him to yield to Spinoza's character by
giving currency to a piece of malignant gossip about a friend
of Spinoza's, known or suspected to share Spinoza's opinions,
and who, as a person only coming incidentally into the story,
had no particular claim to be treated with justice. But credit
must be given to Colerus, on the other hand, for his downright
contradiction of the tales concerning Spinoza's death-bed
which were circulated, it would seem, by persons who thought
it would tend to edification to represent Spinoza as the blus
tering infidel of popular orthodox polemics, who is invariably

40 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

assailed by doubt and disquietude- in his last moments, and
as invariably strives to disguise them with feeble bravado.1
Colerus very honestly says that the people of the house, whom
he more than once questioned, knew nothing of any such
matters, and did not believe a word of them.

Spinoza left behind him but a scanty estate : some thirty
or forty volumes, a few engravings, the tools of his trade,
and a certain number of finished lenses ; which last, we are
told, fetched a good price ; besides these a modest list of per
sonal effects, carefully enumerated by Colerus, and in all so
little more than would cover debts and expenses that the sur
viving sister Rebekah, who at first was disposed to assert her
rights, concluded that the inheritance was not worth having.
Yet Spinoza had one precious legacy to dispose of — the desk
containing his letters and unpublished work. Van der Spijck
had been charged to convey this after Spinoza's death to Jan
Rieuwertz, a publisher at Amsterdam. The trust was faithfully
executed, and the ' Opera Ppsthuma ' appeared in the course
of the same year, but without the author's full name. The
editors' preface explains that this was by his own request.

* The writer's name/ they say, ' is expressed on the title-page and
elsewhere only by his initials ; which is done for no other reason
than that, shortly before his death, he specially desired that his name
should not be prefixed to his Ethics, while he directed the printing of
them. The only reason for this prohibition was, as we think, that he
chose not that his doctrine should be called after his name. For he
says in the Appendix to the fourth part of the Ethics, cap. 25, that
they who desire to aid others by counsel or deed to the common
enjoyment of the chief good shall in no wise endeavour themselves
that a doctrine be called after their name. Moreover in the third
part of the Ethics, in the nth definition of the Passions, where he
explains the nature of ambition, he plainly charges with vain -glory
those who do after this sort.'

In the following year the States of Holland and West

1 One of these stories is circumstantially repeated by Bayle, Pensees Diverses,
§ 181, ' Vanite de Spinoza a 1'heure de mort.'

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 41

Friesland, being satisfied that, the book entitled ' B. D. S.
Opera Posthuma ' ' labefactated ' various essential articles of
the faith and < vilipended the authority of miracles,' expressed
' the highest indignation ' at the disseminating thereof, declared
it profane, atheistic, and blasphemous, and forbad printing,
selling, and dealing in it, on pain of their high displeasure.1

The framers of this well-meant enactment earned a per
manent remembrance for their work, but not quite as they
desired. Instead of their ordinance extinguishing Spinoza's
' Ethics,' the ' Ethics' have preserved the memory of the
ordinance.

It remains to say something of Spinoza's manner of daily
life and outward habit ; which however, as we know them
almost entirely through Colerus's account, so they are pre
sented by Colerus with a kind of simple quaintness more
impressive than any studied description can be. The
effect of those particulars which we possess is to show us a
man who was led to a retired life by choice and circum
stance, not by ostentation ; to an almost incredible frugality
by reasons of health and economy, not by ascetic pride ; who
could be freespoken and of good will towards all sorts of men,
but would be dependent on none. His living and diet were
of the simplest, his expenses amounting sometimes only to a
few pence for the whole day. But he kept down his expenses
in this manner chiefly, if not wholly, in order to keep them
within his means ; just making both ends meet, as he would
say of himself, like a snake with its tail in its mouth. And
his means remained slender to the last because he did not
choose to live on patronage, and the studies to which he
devoted the best of his mind had even less bread-winning virtue
then than they have now. It is reported that Spinoza, on hear
ing that a man who owed him 200 florins had become bankrupt,
said with a smile, ' I must retrench my allowance to make

1 June 25, 1678. Groot Placaet Boek, ^de deel, p. 525 : Bibliografie,
No. 24.

42 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

up for this little matter ; at this price one buys equanimity.' l
But the story seems doubtful.

Again, Spinoza lived in a retirement which at times
might be called solitude ; when absorbed in work he would
hardly leave his chamber for many days together ; once he
did not leave the house for three months.2 But if on these
occasions he chose to be alone, it was not that he loved
solitude for its own sake. He had none of the shallow pride
and arrogance which fancies that the way to show superior
knowledge is to disdain the common intercourse of mankind.
There was no touch of misanthropy in the retirement from the
world which he imposed upon himself. Besides keeping up
a not inconsiderable correspondence, Spinoza visited and was
visited by not a few men of letters and learning ; there was
a time, as we gather from his own statements, when their
civilities left him few hours to call his own.

Nor did he limit his converse to scholars : he knew how
to win the esteem and affection of the simple folk of the
household where he dwelt, an esteem which, as M. Renan has
well said, is in truth the most precious of all. He talked
freely and familiarly with his hosts the Van der Spijcks, and
would counsel their children to good behaviour and obedience.
He discussed with them the sermons of Dr. Cordes, the
Lutheran pastor who preceded Spinoza's biographer Colerus
in the charge of the Lutheran congregation at the Hague,
and recommended them to give all attention to the discourses
of so excellent a teacher. Bold as he was in speculative
thought, and detached in his own person from all sects and
doctrines, Spinoza was no furious iconoclast in private life.

1 This anecdote is only in Lucas, and as given by him has a slightly theatrical
air. He adds a sort of apologetic explanation : ' Je ne rapporte pas cette action
comme quelque chose d'eclatant, mais comme il n'y a rien en quoi le genie paraisse
davantage qu'en ces sortes de petites choses, je n'ai pu 1'omettre sans scrupule.'
I cannot but suspect that the turn of the saying at least is borrowed from Epictetus
{Man. c. 12, 2), ciri\fyf OTI roffovrov ira}\€'irai airdOeia, roffovrov
CLT apa^ia.

2 Pref. to Opera Posthnma.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 43

He did not seek to make nominal proselytes who would have
been neither the wiser nor the happier for their conversion,
and when the good woman of the house attacked him with a
point-blank question as to the sufficiency of her religion for
salvation, he answered that her religion was good if it led her
to a good life, and she had no need to seek further.

But the strength of Spinoza's social feelings, and the
importance he attached to fellowship among men as the only
means by which man can live a life worthy of his nature,
are most evidently shown in his ' Ethics ; ' and the ideal of
human life which he there sets forth, and to which he himself
was faithful in action, will com,e under our notice when we
endeavour to obtain a view of his philosophy.

44 SPINOZA; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER II.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE.

Treu dem Gesetz und treu

Dir selbst— so bleibst du frei.— PROVERB.

He that feeds men serve th few ;

He serves all who dares be true.— EMERSON.

WE have already made use of some of Spinoza's letters in
order to supplement the rather meagre outlines of his bio
graphy which we possess from other sources. Hereafter we
shall have to refer to others as containing important passages
of authentic commentary on his philosophy. But we have a
certain number of an intermediate character, which, while
their interest is literary and speculative rather than personal,
yet lie outside the main lines of Spinoza's systematic thought.
They contain much that is curious in itself, and much that is
useful as an introduction to Spinoza's general manner of
thinking and discussion ; and we may find it worth while to
dwell a little upon them before we finally quit the ground of
biography and enter upon that of criticism. It is pleasant to
linger in a borderland where speculation is still relieved by per
sonal incidents. Of Spinoza's correspondence with Oldenburg
and De Vries we have already seen something : what remains in
those quarters is of strictly philosophical interest. Another
friend of Spinoza who must have been in constant intercourse
with him was Dr. Lewis Meyer, who undertook the publica
tion of the ' Principles of Cartesian Philosophy,' and was after-

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE.

wards joint editor of the ' Opera Posthuma.' What has
become of the letters which passed between these two ? At
present, unfortunately, the answer is that we have one, and
only one, preserved in the ' Opera Posthuma,' this being an
answer to a letter of Meyer's, probably written on behalf of
the philosophical club at Amsterdam, and asking Spinoza for
the result of his speculations on the Infinite. Here, again, we
must leave the contents for the present untouched, only re
marking the comparatively early date (1663) of the letter.
It belongs to the Rijnsburg time, and shows, together with
the letters to De Vries, that the groundwork at least of
Spinoza's system as we now have it was by that time fully
formed.

Oldenburg, Meyer, and De Vries naturally wrote, as
scholars, in Latin (De Vries not without a touch of Batavism),
and Spinoza replied to them in the same language, writing
carefully, and even indulging in purisms : he will not put the
scholastic form ' essendi ' before Meyer without an apology.1
But there were other less learned correspondents who pre
ferred the vernacular.

The originals of their letters are apparently preserved
in the Dutch version of the ' Opera Posthuma,' which was pub
lished almost simultaneously with the Latin text. But with
Spinoza's own replies to them it is not so. Two of Spinoza's
Dutch letters are preserved as he wrote them, and the editors
of the ' Nagelate Schriften ' found it necessary to make con
siderable amendments in their composition. In one of them
Spinoza expressly apologizes for not being perfect in the
language. There is some reason to think the Latin versions
of the letters originally sent in Dutch were prepared for pub
lication by Spinoza himself.2

The lion's share of the miscellaneous correspondence, in

1 ' Infinitam essendi sive (invita Latinitate) essendi fruitionem. ' — Ep. 29.

2 See Prof. Land's paper, Over de eerste tiitgaven der brieven -van Spinoza,
Amsterdam, 1879 ; and Appendix C below.

46 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

point of bulk at least, belongs to William van Blyenbergh, a
worthy merchant and municipal officer of Dort, and a citizen
of good family, who was mightily taken, by his own account,
with Spinoza's ' Principles of Cartesian Philosophy.' In
December 1664 he wrote to Spinoza in these terms : —

* Dear Sir and unknown Friend, — I have already had the pleasure
of several times carefully reading over your treatise lately published,
together with its Appendix. It will be more proper for rne to speak
to others than to yourself of the exceeding solidity I found in it and
of the pleasure I derived from it. This much I cannot forbear saying,
that the oftener I go over it with attention, the more I am pleased
with it ; and that I constantly find something which I had not
marked before.'

He proceeds to enlarge (in a style much improved by the
Latin translation) on his sincere love of philosophic truth as
the only thing deserving of affection in this transitory life, on
his admiration for the knowledge and philosophic felicity
shown in Spinoza's work, and his desire to make the personal
acquaintance of a man so favoured, and on his disappoint
ment in having been prevented, by various causes, from intro
ducing himself to Spinoza face to face instead of by letter.
He had meant only to ask, in a preliminary way, whether he
might trouble Spinoza with some of his difficulties ; but, ' not
to leave the letter quite empty,' he states one of them forth
with, which concerns the question of creation, especially as
bearing on the origin of evil. If, according to what is said in
various places by Spinoza, both in his exposition of Descartes
and in his own commentary, God is the immediate cause, not
only of the existence of the human soul but of its particular
operations, is not God the immediate cause of evil volitions,
for example, the determination of Adam to eat the forbidden
fruit ? Blyenbergh professes himself puzzled, but confidently
awaits a satisfactory answer, and adds a sentence ominous of
future garrulity : ' Be assured, dear sir, that I ask this for no
other cause than desire for the truth, and have no particular

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 47

interests ; I am unattached, dependent on no profession ; I
live by honest merchandise, and spend my leisure on these
subjects. I humbly pray you not to find my difficulties
troublesome.'

Spinoza seems to have thought from this first letter that
Blyenbergh was a man of some real capacity, and that he
had gained a valuable acquaintance. At any rate, he received
his unknown correspondent with a warm welcome.

'Unknown Friend,— From your letter I understand your exceed
ing love of truth, and how that only is the aim of all your desires ;
and since I direct my mind upon naught else, this constrains me to
determine, not only fully to grant your request, which is to answer
to the best of my skill the questions which you now send or shall
send hereafter, but to perform all else on my part which may avail
for our better acquaintance and sincere friendship. For myself, there
is among things out of my own control none I prize more than
entering into the bond of friendship with men who are sincere
lovers of truth. For I believe that nothing in the world, not being
under our own control, can be so securely taken for the object of our
love as men of this temper ; since 'tis no more possible to dissolve
that love they have for one another (seeing it is founded on the love
each of them hath for the knowledge of truth) than not to embrace
the truth itself when once perceived. This love is moreover the
most perfect and delightful which can exist towards objects not in our
control, since no other thing has such virtue as truth to unite men's
minds and affections. I say nothing of the exceeding conveniences
that spring from it, that I may no longer detain you with matters
which you doubtless well know ; I have however done so thus far,
the better to show how pleasant it is to me now, and will be in future,
to find any occasion of doing you service/

He then takes up the question proposed by Blyenbergh.
After observing that Blyenbergh has not defined his notion of
evil, Spinoza declares that for his part he cannot allow that
sin and evil have any positive reality, much less that anything
happens contrary to God's will : nay, it is only an inexact
and human fashion of speech to say that man can sin against
or offend God. For every really existing thing, if we consider

48 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

it apart from its relation to other things, is perfect as far as
its existence goes (this equivalence of reality and perfection is
one of the key-notes of Spinoza's metaphysic). Thus, taking
Blyenbergh's example of Adam's determination to eat the
forbidden fruit, there is no imperfection in the act as such.
Approval or disapproval implies a standard of comparison ;
we are simply amused by actions in animals which are the
object of moral condemnation in men. Sin is a note of im
perfection, and therefore something apart from the action
itself, in so far as it partakes of or ' expresses reality.'

Again, we cannot say that Adam's will was evil inasmuch
as it displeased God. For we cannot assume anything to
happen against God's will without assuming imperfection in
God, whose will, indeed, being coextensive with his under
standing, an event against God's will could only be an event
repugnant to the laws of understanding. Adam's determina
tion, then, was not evil considered in itself, nor yet, strictly
speaking, contrary to God's will ; and there is no difficulty in
admitting God to have been the cause of it, so far as it was a
real action. Its evil consisted in Adam's losing in consequence
of it the state of perfection he enjoyed before. But loss is
merely negative, and the conception of it a relative one which
has no place in absolute intellect. Our notion of imperfection
arises from an individual not conforming to the type of the
class which we have obtained by a process of abstraction.
But infinite intellect has no need of abstraction or definition,
and therefore does not and cannot regard anything as imper
fect. Everything is as real and as perfect as the divine power
has made it : in other words, as perfect as it can be. We
call things good or bad in their kinds ; but the divine intel
lect sees everything as perfect in itself.1 This Spinoza thinks

1 Cf. Cogit. Met. pt. ii. c. 7, § 4 : ' Quum ergo mala et peccata in rebus nihil
sint, sed tantum in mente humana res inter se comparante, sequitur Deum ipsa
extra mentes humanas non cognoscere.' And § 5 :'.... Deo singularium
cognitionem tribuimus, universalium denegamus, nisi quatenus mentes humanas
intelligit. '

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 49

a sufficient answer on speculative grounds ; but he goes on to
the practical bearings of the matter. As to the language of the
Scriptures, they speak in a popular, not a philosophic manner,
ascribing to God anger, jealousy, and even liability to error.
' Thus the precept given to Adam consisted only in this, that
God revealed to Adam that eating of that tree caused death ;
just as God reveals to us through natural understanding that
poison is deadly to us. If you ask for what purpose God
revealed this to Adam, I answer, in order to make him to
that extent more perfect in knowledge.' l If you ask,
again, why he did not give Adam a more perfect will, it is
like asking why God has not endowed the circle with the
properties of the sphere.

Then as to the objection that if all men do the will of
God, the wicked do it no less than the good : they do it in
deed in their fashion, but their lot is nevertheless very
different, Knowing not God, they serve him as a blind
instrument in the workman's hand, which perishes in the
using ; the righteous do their service with knowledge, and are
made more perfect therein.

The letter discloses only parts of Spinoza's ethical theory,
and in language adapted to the assumptions of his questioner j
but these parts are characteristic. Even in this form they
may still seem daring to many readers, and Blyenbergh
was entirely taken aback by them. Yet the leading idea of
the letter — namely, that the notions of good and evil are re
lative, and have place only in finite intellects — had been enun
ciated centuries before by Maimonides. Observe also Spinoza's
complete Nominalism, and the important practical use he
makes of it against the anthropomorphic view of the govern
ment of the world.

Ten days later Blyenbergh replied in a very long epistle,
the contents of which it is needless to state further than that

1 Cf. Tract. Theol. -Polit. c. 4, § § 26, 27, where it is said that the revelation
was a command or precept only in respect of Adam's imperfect knowledge.

50 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

he repeats and enlarges on his objections. He protests that
Spinoza's doctrine destroys all practical difference between
right and wrong, and leaves no ground for preferring virtue
to vice. As for desiring virtue for its own sake, human
nature is far too weak for that. ' See what ground we give
to all godless men and their impiety ! We make ourselves
like stocks, and our actions no better than the works of a
watch.' Blyenbergh also explains to Spinoza at the begin
ning of the letter that he has two rules wherewith to guide
himself in philosophy, Reason and Scripture ; and that if the
apparently clear conclusions of his reason differ from the re
vealed word, he can only suppose that his reason is wrong.1

This disclosure was a surprise to Spinoza, who answered
that on such conditions discussion would not be very profit
able.

' When I read your first letter, I thought that our opinions pretty
well agreed ; but from the second I understand it is quite otherwise,
and perceive that we differ not only in the consequences that may be
drawn from first principles, but also in the principles themselves ; in
somuch that I can scarce believe that we shall be able to instruct
one another further by letters. For I see that no demonstration,
however firm it may be according to the laws of demonstration, may
prevail with you unless it agree with the interpretation that you, or
other theologians familiar to you, put upon Holy Writ. If you find
the light of Scripture clearer than the light of reason (which also is
given us by divine wisdom), you are doubtless right in your own
conscience in making your reason yield. For my part, since I
plainly confess that I do not understand the Scriptures, though I have
spent many years upon them, and since I know that when once I
have a firm proof I cannot by any course of thought come to doubt of
it, I rest wholly upon that which my understanding commends to me,
without any suspicion tha't I am deceived therein, or that the
Scriptures, even though I do not search them, can speak against it.
For one truth cannot conflict with another, as I have already clearly
shown in my Appendix to the " Principles of Descartes " (I cannot give
the chapter, as here in the country I have not the book by me).2

1 EP. 33.

2 Cogit. Met, pt. ii. c. 8, § 5. ' Veritas veritati non repugnat, nee scriptura

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 5t

But if in any case I did find error in that which I have collected from
my natural understanding, I should count it good fortune, since I
enjoy life, and endeavour to pass it not in weeping and sighing, but
in peace, joy, and cheerfulness, and from time to time climb thereby
a step higher. I know, meanwhile (which is the highest pleasure of
all), that all things happen by the power and unchangeable decree of
the most perfect Being.'

He then turns to the matter of Blyenbergh's objections,
which depend on his way of regarding God in his relations to
man as a magnified human judge ; whereas in Spinoza's view
the reward of serving God is not as it were a prize, but the
necessary consequence of the work itself. The love of God,
which is man's highest happiness, follows from the knowledge
of God as necessarily as it follows from the nature of
a triangle that the sum of its angles is two right angles.
' One may easily give a general proof of this, if one will only
consider the nature of God's decrees, as I have explained in
my Appendix.1 But I confess that all those who confound
the divine nature with that of man are very inapt to compre
hend this.' Spinoza further shows how Blyenbergh had mis
understood both himself and Descartes, and then replies with
some warmth to the charge that his doctrine is likely to have
mischievous consequences. ' When you say that by making
men so dependent on God I make them like the natural
elements, herbs, or stones, that is full proof that you take my
meaning much amiss, and confuse things which are of the
understanding with things of the imagination. For if you
had clearly conceived in your understanding what dependence
on God is, you would never think that things, forasmuch as

| nugas, quales vulgo finguntj docere potesU Si enim in ipsa inveniremus aliquid,
, quod lumini naturali esset contrarium, eadem libertate, qua Alcoranum et
j Thalmud refellimus, illam refellere possemus.'

1 Cogit. Met. pt. ii. c. 9 ; cf. c. 7, § 7 : Dei volitiones et decreta = eius cognitio
circa res creatas]: 'Dei idea sive decretum.' Cf. too Tract. Theol.-Pol. c. 4,
§§ 24> 25 : ' respectu Dei unum et idem affirmamus, quum dicimus Deum ab
aeterno decrevisse et voluisse tres angulos trianguli aequales esse duobus rectis, vel
Deum hoc ipsum intellexisse.'

52 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

they depend on God, are dead, corporeal, and imperfect (as
who has ever dared speak so meanly of the most perfect
being ?) ; you would understand, on the contrary, that thereby,
and forasmuch as they depend on God, they are perfect ; so
that we best understand this dependence, and the necessary
operation of things by God's decrees, when we look, not upon
stocks and herbs, but upon the most reasonable and perfect
creatures. ... I cannot forbear saying that I am greatly
amazed when you say, If God were not to punish evil (to
wit, as a judge doth, with a punishment that the evil itself
brings not with it, for that is our only difference), what reason
is there that I should not run into all manner of wickedness ?
Surely he who abstains from such things only for fear of pun
ishment (which I will not think of you) is in no way moved
by love towards God, and has mighty little affection for
virtue. For my part, I let such things alone, or endeavour so
to do, because they would be clearly at strife with my proper
nature, and lead me astray from the knowledge and the love
of God.'

As to the rule of submission to the Scriptures, Spinoza
says that in his opinion it is a more respectful way of treat
ing the Scriptures to recognize that they speak in human
language and in parables than to put hasty and absurd
interpretations upon them for the purpose of contradicting
natural reason. ' Matters of high speculation have, I think,
nothing to do with the Scriptures. For my part, I have learnt
none of God's eternal attributes from Scripture, nor have been
able to learn any.'

One would think this answer not very encouraging, but
Blyenbergh, nothing daunted, returned to the charge with
another letter l nearly as long as the former one. He mildly
complains of Spinoza's censures, but makes a kind of apo
logy for persisting in his objections. He asks many new
questions, most of them unanswerable and some irrational,

1 EP. 35-

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 53

and winds up with this sage postscript : ' Through haste I
have forgot to add this question, whether we cannot by our
foresight prevent that which otherwise would befall us ? '
Spinoza replied l in courteous terms, but obviously beginning
to lose patience, that his purpose had been not merely to
criticize, but to point out to Blyenbergh the fundamental
nature of their difference. ' I had thought/ he says in
substance, ' that you wished to discuss these matters in a
purely philosophical manner, but you showed me that it was
otherwise, and that the foundation on which I thought to
build our friendship was not laid as I had supposed.' He
consents once more, however, to address himself to Blyen-
bergh's objections. The leading passage is so characteristic
that it seems profitable to give it nearly in full.

* In the first place I say that God is perfectly and truly the cause
of everything whatsoever that hath any being. Now if you can
show that evil, error, crimes, and the like are anything which
expresses real being, I shall fully grant to you that God is the cause
of these things. I have sufficiently shown, to my mind, that that
which constitutes the nature of evil, error, crimes, and so forth
consists not in anything that expresses real being ; and therefore we
cannot say that God is their cause. For example, Nero's matricide,
in so far as it comprehended anything positive, was not a crime.
For the outward act, and likewise the intention to slay his mother,
were the same in Orestes' case, and yet he is not blamed, at least not
in the same degree as Nero. What, then, was- Nero's crime?
Nothing else but that by such a deed he showed himself ungrateful,
unmerciful, and disobedient. 'Tis certain that none of these things
express real being, and therefore God was not the cause thereof,
though he was of Nero's act and intent. Further, I would here have
you note that while we speak in the manner of philosophy we must
not use the language of theology. For since theology constantly
represents God as a perfect man (and that not without reason) it
suits well enough in theology to say that God has desire, that he is
angered at the works of the ungodly, or that he takes pleasure in
those of the righteous. But in philosophy, where we clearly under-

54 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

stand that it is as little fit to ascribe to God the properties that make
a man perfect as if one should ascribe to man such as belong to the
perfection of the elephant or the ass, there, I say, the forementioned sort
of terms have no place, and we cannot so use them without greatly
confounding our conception of the matter. Therefore, philosophically
speaking, we may not say that God desires anything of any man, or
that anything is displeasing or agreeable to him ; for all these are
human qualities, which in God have no place.'

He goes on to say, in answer to specific questions of
Blyenbergh's, that however indifferent acts may be in them
selves, considered from the philosophic or universal point of
view, this does not affect our moral judgment of the agents.
Blyenbergh asks whether homicide is equally acceptable
to God with almsgiving? < Philosophically speaking,' says
Spinoza, ' I do not know what you mean by acceptable to God.
If the question is whether God hates the one and loves the
other, and whether the one has given offence to God and the
other done him a favour, then I answer No. If the question
is whether murderers are equally good and perfect with those
who give alms, I again say No.' The similar question,
whether stealing be in the sight of God as good as honesty,
is similarly disposed of. The acts of the thief and the honest
man, so far as they are real actions, are equally perfect.
Spinoza's meaning may want illustration for modern readers ;
suppose, for example, a thief putting forth his hand to steal,
and an honest man laying hands on him to stop him. The
motion of the hand, considered as a natural event exhibiting
the structure and functions of human limbs, is in itself no better
or worse in the honest man's anatomy than in the thief's. Or,
again, a thief may steal goods with violence, and an officer of
justice may afterwards recover them from the thief, by actions
in themselves precisely similar. But the honest man and
the thief are not therefore alike in perfection or happiness
of estate. ' For by an honest man ' (Spinoza continues) ' I
understand one who desires that every one should have his

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 55

own ; and I show in my Ethics (as yet unpublished) that this
desire necessarily arises in righteous men from the clear know
ledge they have of themselves and of God.' Evil-doers, not
having this desire, must be without the knowledge of God,
and so miss the great foundation of human happiness.

There was yet a third question : if there existed a mind
so framed that vice and crime were not repugnant to its
proper nature but agreed with it, could any rational motive
be assigned why such an agent should do good or avoid evil ?
Spinoza says that this is to assume a contradiction.

' It seems to me no otherwise than if one asked, supposing
it agreed better with his nature to hang himself, whether there
would be any reason for not hanging himself,' Assuming
that a man could really find hanging to agree better with
him than eating and drinking, his only rational course would
be to hang himself ; assuming that such a perverse human
being as suggested by Blyenbergh could exist, vice would
with respect to such a being become virtue.

' As to the last question, which you have added at the
end of your letter, since one could put a hundred such in an
hour without coming to a conclusion in any case, and you
do not much press for an answer yourself, I shall not answer
it.' The question was indeed a formidably vague one.
Probably Blyenbergh wanted to extract from Spinoza some
thing capable of being used as an admission of free-will.

Blyenbergh, still unabashed, paid Spinoza a visit in person,
and finding that he could not remember to his own satisfac
tion what Spinoza had said to him, sent yet another epistle,
asking a new string of questions, which rambled pretty well
over the whole ground of the ' Principia Philosophise ' and
' Cogitata Metaphysica.' He concluded by asking, as a
favour necessary to his complete understanding of Spinoza's
answers, that Spinoza would furnish him with the principal
heads of the ' Ethics.'

Philosophers are men (though the contrary seems to be

56 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

not uncommonly believed), and human long-suffering has
limits. After some delay Spinoza now replied very shortly,1
to the effect that he really could not undertake to answer
questions of such a scope, but hoped to find an opportunity
of explaining by word of mouth that it was impracticable ;
the chief reason being that, even if he could do it, the funda
mental differences between his views and Blyenbergh's would
remain where they were before. He hopes that, on further
consideration of the matter, Blyenbergh will waive this last
request, and remain his good friend. With this Blyenbergh
disappears from Spinoza's correspondence, but we hear more
of him from Colerus, who speaks with much admiration of
a controversial treatise against the 'Tractatus Theologico-
Politicus ' published by Blyenbergh in 1674. Notwithstand
ing his former friendly intercourse with Spinoza, the worthy
merchant of Dordrecht pronounced the book to be ' full of
curious but abominable discoveries, the learning and inquiries
whereof must needs have been fetched from hell.' He under
took to prove Spinoza's opinions ruinous to the welfare of
souls and of States, ' Ziel- en Landsverderffelyck.' But such
were the usual amenities of controversy at the time. In
most cases they probably implied no personal ill-will. Eight
years later Blyenbergh also published a refutation of the
' Ethics,' 2 with the motto Ardua quae pulchra, probably meant
as a counterblast to Spinoza's own concluding words, ' omnia
praeclara tarn difficilia quam rara sunt.'

The curiosity of Spinoza's questioners was not limited to
the proper field of philosophy ; they made no scruple of con
sulting him on omens and ghosts. A friend named Peter
Balling, of whom we know very little,3 but for whom, judging
from the tone of the answer, Spinoza must have had a sincere
regard, announced the death of a child, and at the same time

1 Ep. 38. 2 Bibliografie, 380.

3 It appears that he was the translator of Spinoza's Principles of Descartes'
Philosophy, of which a Dutch version came out not long after the Latin.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 57

(seeking perhaps distraction in a speculative question) desired
Spinoza's opinion of a supposed forewarning that had come
to him. In other circumstances it is possible that Spinoza
might have dealt with such a query rather summarily. We
cannot suppose for instance that Blyenbergh would have taken
much by throwing it in among his other difficulties. But now
Spinoza was full of consideration for his friend's distress, and
whatever he may have thought of the wisdom of the question
in itself, he answered it,1 gently and patiently, though with
his usual decision. After expressing his sympathy and en
treating Balling to write to him again at length, he proceeds
to the matter of the warning.

' As to the omen you mention, namely, that while your child was
still in good health you heard it groan in the same manner that it did
when it had fallen into the sickness whereof it soon after died : I
should think these were no real groans, but mere imagination, since
you say that when you rose up and set yourself to listen for them,
you heard them not so clearly as either before, or afterwards when
you had fallen asleep again. Surely this proves that these groans
were nothing else than imagination, which, being detached and
free, could frame to itself a sound of groans in a more forcible and
lively manner than in the time when you rose up to listen in a certain
direction. I can both confirm and explain what I now say by another
chance which befell me last winter at Rijnsburg. One morning as
I woke out of a very heavy dream (it being already day), the images
which had come before me in my dream remained before my eyes
as lively as if they had been the very things, and specially that of a
scurvy 2 black Brazilian, whom I had never before seen. This image
vanished for the most part, when, in order to divert myself with
somewhat else, I cast my eyes on a book or any other thing ; but
so soon as 1 removed my eyes from their object, without looking
with attention anywhere, the image of this same negro appeared
as lively as before, and that again and again, until it vanished even
to the head. Now I s,ay that the same thing which happened to
me in the inward sense of sight happened in your sense of hearing,
But since the causes were very different, there was in your case an
omen, and in mine none. [The effects of the imagination are

1 Ep. 30, - Or, 'leprous.'

58 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

various, according to the exciting cause, which may be either mental
or bodily.1 Where it is bodily, as in the delirium of fever, there can
be no question of any relation to future events.] But the effects of
imagination, or images, which have their origin from the condition
of the mind, may be omens of something future, because the mind
can have a confused presentiment of such a thing. It can therefore
frame to itself as firm and lively an image of such a thing as if the
thing were present. Thus, to take an example like yours, a father
so loves his son that he and his beloved son are as it were one and
the same being.'

Spinoza goes on to say, referring for details to some
fuller exposition of the subject which cannot be identified
with anything in his extant works, that in so far as the
father is united by sympathy with the son, he shares not
only in his actual existence, but in the consequences de
termined by his present state and potentially included in
it. Under favourable conditions, then, he may have an
extremely vivid imagination of something depending on
the son's own constitution and likely to happen to him, and
which does in fact happen to him shortly afterwards.

Spinoza's language is not altogether clear. It seems to
assume a physiological theory of presentiments and other
similar occurrences, designed to afford a natural explanation
not only of the subjective facts, but of the supposed warnings
being verified in a certain proportion of cases. Some such
theory may have been struck out by Spinoza in the days when
he still believed in animal spirits ; as indeed various physical
conjectures of a similar kind have been started in our own
time with much less excuse. Even very ingenious persons
will try the most improbable suppositions rather than resign
themselves to the incredulity of healthy common sense.

It is fairly certain that the ' confused presentiment ' spoken
of in the letter does not mean a revelation or literal foreseeing

1 Spinoza is here speaking in a popular manner. We shall see hereafter that
he does rot admit any causal connexion between mental and material phenomena,
but only a parallel correspondence excluding such a relation.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 59

of a future event as such, but a sort of unconscious judgment
of the possibilities involved in existing conditions. But the
exact nature of this operation is not defined, still less the
nature and extent of the sympathy which enables us to form
a presentiment as to persons closely connected with us. The
conception of love as an impulse to union with the beloved
object, which is here pressed to an almost fantastic conse
quence, is taken from Descartes, who himself probably had it
from s,ome older source. It plays an important part in
Spinoza's essay < On God and Man/ — confided in manuscript to
a limited number of friends, of whom perhaps Balling was one
—but has disappeared in the Ethics. On the whole the re
marks now in question seem to belong to an early stage of
Spinoza's psychology. Compared with other letters of about
the same date (1664) they present something like an anachron
ism. But such anachronisms must exist in the mind of every
man whose thoughts are still maturing ; and, under the special
circumstances, Spinoza was probably willing to strain a point
in favour of treating Balling's question seriously.

Ten years later another correspondent, whose name has
been charitably suppressed by the editors of the ' Opera
Posthuma/ wrote to Spinoza, without any particular occasion
that appears, to ask what he thought about ghosts. He comes
to the point without preface or preparation. ' The reason of my
writing to you,' he says, ' is that I desire to know your opinion
concerning apparitions, and ghosts or goblins ; and if they
exist, what you think of them, and how long they live ? for
some consider them mortal and some immortal.' He is quite
aware, however, that Spinoza may entertain the preliminary
doubt whether there be ghosts at all : ' but 'tis certain the
ancients believed in them. . . . Some say they are made of
a very thin fine matter, others that they are incorporeal.'
Spinoza's answer1 begins with a neatly turned compliment: —

1 Ep. 56.

60 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

' Your letter, received yesterday, was most acceptable to me, as
well because I desired some tidings of you, as because I see that you
have not quite forgotten me. And though others might perhaps take
it for a bad omen that ghosts or goblins should be the cause of your
writing to me, I find on the contrary something much more to the
purpose ; for I perceive that not only real things but trifles of the
imagination may thus turn to my profit.'

He deals with the question in a tone of perfect courtesy,
but with a touch of banter. ' I esteem you too much,' he says,
' to contradict you ; much less can I flatter you with a feigned
assent. As a middle course I will beseech you to produce
one or two thoroughly authenticated ghost stories of your own
choice. To be plain with you, I am so far from having met
with a satisfactory account of any ghost, that I cannot even
make out what a ghost is. If the philosophers choose to
name those things ghosts which we do not know, I will not
contradict them, for there are an infinity of things whereof I
have no knowledge.' He lastly observes that all the ghosts
he ever heard of were at best very foolish creatures, and
seemed to have nothing better to do than to make dull prac
tical jokes.

The questioner replies l that he expected some such
answer, as from a friend not sharing his opinion (so it would
seem his original purpose was to start a discussion) ; but
friends, he adds, may well differ in things indifferent and yet
preserve their friendship.

Before proceeding to give reasons for his belief he notes,
with a judicial gravity which need not surprise us, seeing that
it is maintained at the present day by believers in table-
moving, slate-writing, funipotent and other goblins, that
preconceived opinions hinder the investigation of truth. He
does not meet Spinoza's challenge, but gives a priori reasons
why there must be disembodied or semi-material spirits — such

1 Ep. 57.

SPJNOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 61

creatures being, in his opinion, indispensable for the com
pleteness of the universe. On their natural history he is
a little uncertain. ' I think there are spirits of all sorts,
though, perhaps, none of the female sex.' Being aware,
however, that these reasons will not be convincing to
people who think the world was made by chance, he passes
to evidence. He does not accept the stories of demons and
magicians ; but for ghosts in general he cites Plutarch, Pliny
the Younger, Suetonius, Lavater, and others ; the experience
of a burgomaster of his own acquaintance, ' a learned and wise
man, yet living, who told me that a noise of working was
heard all night in his mother's brewhouse, just like that
which brewing made in the day time,' and some similar and
never-to-be-forgotten experience of his own — of which no
particulars are disclosed.

After a while Spinoza replied,1 still in the tone of his first
answer. He had been able to consult only Pliny and Sueto
nius among the list of authorities given by his friend ; but he
found these quite enough, for they convinced him that the
historians who report ghost stories do so merely for the sake
of astonishing their readers. ' I confess that I am not a
little amazed, not at the stories that are told, but at those
who set them down.' The suggestion that there are male but
not female ghosts is presumably not serious, 'otherwise I
could only compare it to the imagination of the common sort,
who take God to be masculine and not feminine.' He explains
that he entirely repudiates the notion of the world having
been made by chance, but he nevertheless cannot admit his
friend's assertion that ghosts are necessary to its perfection.
For perfection and beauty are terms relative to the observer.
' He who says that God has made the world beautiful must
needs assert one of two propositions : either that God has
framed the world according to the desire and the eyes of men,
or the desire and eyes of men according to the world. Now,

> EP. 58.

62 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

whether you assert the former or the latter, I see not why
God must have made goblins and ghosts to attain either of
these two ends. For perfection and imperfection, they are
terms not much different from beauty and ugliness. So,
not to be tedious, I only ask, is the existence of ghosts more
necessary to the adornment and perfection of the world than
that of various other monsters like Centaursj Hydras, Harpies,
Satyrs, Griffins, Argus, and other like vanities ? A pretty
world it should have been, indeed, had God adorned and
beautified it after the good pleasure of our fancies with such
things as any man may easily imagine and dream, but none
have yet been able to understand.' Having disposed of the
other reasons, Spinoza regrets that his friend has not been
able to furnish him with any better example than the burgo
master's ghost in the brewhouse, which he considers laughable.
* To cut the matter short, I take for my authority Julius
Caesar, who, as Suetonius reports, made sport of such things
and yet prospered. And so must all do who consider the
effects of human imagination and passions, whatever Lavater,
and others who in this matter dream in company with him,
may say to the contrary.'

The rejoinder ] was delayed by a passing indisposition of
the writer. It was mostly taken up with a theological
digression. Spinoza's friend asks, among other things, as a
retort to his demand for a clearer definition of ghost or spirit,
whether he has so clear an idea of God as of a triangle. As
to the main point, he takes refuge in the general consent of
ancient and modern philosophers. ' Plutarch bears witness of
this in his treatises of the Opinions of the Philosophers, and
of the Daemon of Socrates ; as do all the Stoics, Pythago
reans, PlatonistSj Peripatetics, Empedocles, Maximus Tyrius,
Apuleius, and others.'

Spinoza must have had reasons of private friendship for
being indulgent to this correspondent ; for he not only

1 EP. 59,

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 63

answered him again, but took up his remarks on points quite
collateral to the existence of ghosts. Part of this letter l is
of some importance. Spinoza points out that he conceives
freedom as opposed, not to necessity, but to external com
pulsion. Every one admits, for example, that God's know
ledge of himself is both free and necessary. So, again, man's
love of life is necessary, but not compelled. The correspon
dent had expressed surprise at Spinoza's refusal to ascribe
human qualities to God. To this Spinoza replies : ' When
you say that, if I allow not in God the operations of seeing,
hearing, observing, willing, and the like, nor that they exist
eminently in him, you know not what sort of God mine is: I
thence conjecture that you believe there is no greater perfection
than such as can be explained by the attributes aforesaid. I
do not wonder at it ; for I believe that a triangle, if it could
speak, would in like manner say that God is eminently tri
angular, and a circle that the divine nature is in an eminent
manner circular ; and thus should every one ascribe his own
attributes to God, and make himself like God, counting
everything else as misshapen.2 . . . When you ask me
whether I have so clear an idea of God as of a triangle, I
answer Yes. But if you ask me whether I have such a clear
image of God as of a triangle, I shall answer No: for we
cannot imagine God, but we can understand him.' This
distinction between imagination and understanding runs
through the whole of Spinoza's philosophy. He repeats that
nothing has been advanced to make the existence of ghosts
even probable, and altogether declines to submit to the
authority of the ancients.

' The authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates does not count

1 EP. 60.

2 Cf. the fragment of Xenophanes : —

' If oxen and horses had hands like ours, and fingers,
Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen,
Paint and fashion their gods.' — (G. H. Lewes's trans.).

64 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

for much with me. I should have been surprised if you had cited
Epicurus, Democritus, Lucretius, or any of the Atomic school. For
it is nothing strange that the inventors of occult qualities, intentional
species, substantial forms, and a thousand other vanities, should have
also devised goblins and ghosts, and given credence to old wives, in
order to destroy Democritus' reputation, whose good name they so
envied that they burnt all the books he had published with so much
renown. If you choose to believe them, what reason have you for
denying the miracles of Our Lady and all the saints ? which are
described by so many philosophers, theologians, and historians of
renown that I can produce a hundred of them for one of the others.'

This last passage is material, as disclosing how very im
perfectly Spinoza was acquainted with Greek philosophy. It
would seem that he thought Aristotle responsible for all the
developments of the schoolmen and knew Plato only by
name. His sympathy with the Epicureans is no doubt
founded on the fact that their system was a genuine attempt
at a scientific explanation of the world, and was in its day
the solitary protest against the contempt of physics which
prevailed in the other post-Aristotelian schools. But he
obviously did not know Lucretius except by hearsay ; for
Lucretius and his masters, so far from venturing to deny the
objective reality of apparitions, provided an elaborate physical
hypothesis to account for them.

Alchemy was a kindred topic which still exercised men's
minds in Spinoza's time, and we have some evidence of the
manner in which he regarded it. In 1667 he wrote to Jarig
Jellis on an alleged conversion of silver into gold effected by
an unknown stranger in the presence of the naturalized Ger
man chemist Helvetius (Schweizer), who had by this time
taken up alchemy with full belief.

He made inquiries of both the goldsmith who had assayed
the gold and Helvetius himself; and though he expresses
no opinion, he was obviously disposed to think seriously of
the matter at that time.1 But in 1675, when Dr. Schaller had

1 Ep. 45. See Lewes, Hist. Phil. 2. 180. Helvetius published his Vitulus

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 65

sent him an account of some similar experiment, he simply
replied that he did not care to repeat it, and that the more he
considered it the more sure he felt that no gold was produced
which was not there already.1

We have also letters more nearly connected with Spinoza's
philosophical work, and attached to particular landmarks of
it. In 1673 the Jewish physician Isaac Orobio de Castro2
forwarded to Spinoza a long letter, written nominally to him,
but for Spinoza's perusal, by a certain Dr. Lambert van Velt-
huysen of Utrecht. This critic went through all the common
topics of censure against the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus/
and concluded that the principles of that treatise destroy the
foundations of religion, ' introduce atheism, or set up a God
himself subject to destiny, whom men can have no reason for
worshipping ; leave no room for divine government or pro
vidence, and abolish all dispensations of reward and punish
ment.' In short, the author of such a work has no injury to
complain of if he is denounced as teaching mere atheism in a
disguised form.3

Spinoza thought the criticism not only wrong but perverse ;
so perverse, indeed, as to be hardly consistent with good faith :
and he replied with a sharpness beyond his wont. The original
draft of the letter has been found, and contains even stronger
expressions, which on consideration he struck out. The tone

Aureus in this same year, 1667. His family is a remarkable example of hereditary
talent ; his son and grandson were both eminent as physicians in France, where
the son settled early in life ; his great grandson (1715-1771) was the philosopher
by whom the name is best known.

1 Ep. 75 b. Van Vloten, Suppl. p. 318.

2 Balthasar, afterwards Isaac Orobio de Castro (circ. 1620-1687) was of a New
Christian family, and had lived many years in Spain, where he was a distinguished
physician. He fell into suspicion of Judaism, and was imprisoned and tortured
by the Inquisition, and finally banished from Spain. A ter spending some time
in France, he settled in Amsterdam and professed himself a Jew. He became
well known as a controversial writer, and was the author of a critique on one of
Spinoza's critics, whom he charged with being himself a Spinozist. (Certamen
Philosophic urn, etc. Bibliogr. 108, 209). Gratz, x. 202.

* Ep. 48.

66 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

of this letter shows us an aspect of Spinoza's character which
we could ill afford to miss. His indignation is not the mere
intellectual disgust of a philosopher at the stupidity of an un
reasonable critic, it is the moral resentment of a man loving
truth and righteousness at the imputation of teaching what he
abhors. It seems well to give here a considerable part of
the letter.

' He begins with saying it concerns him little to know what
is my nation or way of life. If he had known it, he would
not have so easily convinced himself that I teach atheism. It
is the character of atheists to seek rank and wealth beyond
measure, things which I have ever despised, as all know who
are acquainted with me. . . . Then he proceeds : In order to
avoid the reproach of superstition, he seems to me to have cast
off religion altogether. What this writer means by religion
and what by superstition, I know not. Does he, I would
ask, cast off all religion who affirms that God is to be
accepted for the chief good, and that as such he is to be loved
with a free affection ? that in this only consists our per
fect happiness and perfect liberty ? more, that the reward of
virtue is virtue itself, and the punishment of folly and vice is
folly itself? and, lastly, that every man's duty is to love his
neighbour and to obey the commands of the supreme power ?
These things I have not only said, but proved by most solid
reasons. But methinks I see in what mud this fellow sticks.1
He finds, it should seem, nothing to please him in virtue and
knowledge by themselves, and he would choose to live by the
mere impulse of his passions but for this one difficulty, that
he fears the penalty. So he abstains from ill deeds and
follows God's commandments like a slave, unwilling and with a
hesitating mind, and for this service looks to be rewarded by
God with gifts far more grateful to him than the love of God
itself; so much the more, I say, as he finds the more distaste

1 ' Quo in luto hie homo haereat.' Spinoza was scholar enough to know the
classical force of homo in controversial usage, and I think he intended it.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 67

and repugnance in well-doing. And thus it comes about that
in his conceit all men who are not restrained by this fear
must live without discipline and cast off all religion. But I
leave this, and pass to his conclusions where he would fain
show that I teach atheism by covert and glo zing arguments.

' The foundation of his reasoning is this, that he thinks I
take away God's freedom, and make him subject to fate :
which is manifestly false. For I have affirmed that all things
follow of inevitable necessity from God's nature no otherwise
than all affirm that it follows from God's nature that he
understands himself. This surely no one denies to follow
necessarily from God's nature, and yet no one conceives that God
understands himself under any compulsion of fate, but rather
that he does so with entire freedom, though necessarily. . . .

' This inevitable necessity of things destroys neither divine
nor human law. For moral precepts, whether they have the
form of law from God himself [i.e. by direct revelation] or not,
are yet divine and wholesome ; and the good which ensues
from virtue and the love of God, whether we take it from
God as a judge [a political superior issuing distinct com
mands] or as flowing from the necessity of God's nature, will
be neither more nor less desirable ; as on the other hand the
evil which ensues from evil deeds is not therefore less to be
feared because it so comes of necessity : in short, whether
our actions be necessary or free, our motives are still hope
and fear. Therefore his assertion is false, that / would leave
no room for precepts and commands, or, as he says later, that
there is no expectation of reward or punishment when every
thing is ascribed to fate, and it is settled that all things proceed
from God by inevitable necessity. . . .

' It were too long to review all the passages which show that
he was in no sober mood when he formed his judgment of
me. Wherefore I pass to his conclusion, where he says that
/ have left myself no argument to prove that Mahomet was not
a true tirobhet. And this he endeavours to show from my

63 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

principles, whereas it plainly follows from them that Mahomet
was an impostor. For that liberty which is granted by the
catholic religion, as revealed by the light of both nature and
prophecy, and which I have shown is most fit to be granted,
is by him wholly done away. But if this were not so, am I
concerned, I pray you, to show that such and such a prophet
is a false one ? On the contrary, the burden lay on the
prophets to show that they were truly such. If he should reply
that Mahomet also taught God's law, and gave sure tokens
of his mission, as the other prophets did, then I grant there
will be no cause for him to deny that Mahomet was a true
prophet

' For the Turks themselves and heathens in general, if
they worship God by justice and charity to their neighbours,
I believe that they have the spirit of Christ and are saved,
whatever persuasion they may entertain through ignorance
concerning Mahomet and their oracles.

' You see, my friend, how far from the truth your corre
spondent has wandered. Nevertheless I admit that he has
done no injury to me, but much to himself, when he scruples
not to affirm that / teach atheism with covert and glazing
arguments.

' I do not think you will find anything in this that you
can judge too harsh in its terms towards this writer, But if
you light on any such thing I beg you to strike it out, or else
amend it as you shall think fit. I have no mind to anger him,
whoever he may be, or make myself enemies by my work ;
and because this commonly happens in disputations of this
sort, I could scarce bring myself to answer him, nor could I
have done so unless I had promised you.' *

This protest is strong and even vehement in its terms, and
there is not the least reason to doubt its sincerity. It has an
important bearing on that part of Spinoza's sentiments of
which it is peculiarly difficult to form an exact estimate, I

1 Ep. 49.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 69

mean his relation to religious belief in general We shall
have to consider in another place the effect of his philoso
phical system, taken in itself, on religion as usually under
stood. His own interpretation of his philosophy is on that
question material but not conclusive : here it comes before us
as a point in his personal character. It is evident that he
considered religion as something very real in man's life, and
the charge of irreligion or atheism as the grossest and most
wicked of calumnies. But this religion, as he understands it,
is not the religion of churches and sects. It is independent
of dogmatic theology, independent of any particular know
ledge or belief as to revelation, independent even of the
so-called natural theology which holds to the conception of
God as a Person after all other definitions of his nature have
been renounced, and to the expectation of another life which
shall redress the balance of the present one in some manner
of which all specific knowledge is disclaimed. The essence of
religion is in Spinoza's mind a cheerful and willing co-operation
with the order of the world as manifested in the nature of
man and of society. Irreligion is the self-seeking spirit to
which the love that is its own reward is unknown. The
atheist is the man who has nothing better to pursue than the
satisfaction of his own vulgar appetites, whose only plan of
life is ' honores et divitias supra modum quaerere.' The true
and saving worship is to do justice and love one's neighbour.
And observe that Spinoza does not put this as something
beside or opposed to religion ; he speaks of it as religion
itself, and regards definite religious beliefs (in the popular
sense) as things in themselves comparatively indifferent, but

I good in so far as they serve as a vehicle, so to speak, for the

i essential virtues of love and well-doing.

His attitude towards Christianity — not the dogmas of

| Catholic or Reformed divines, but the ' spirit of Christ ' which
men may have in intellectual and historical ignorance —
is one of respect and even reverence. In the ' Tractatus

70 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Theologico-Politicus ' one is not absolutely safe in relying on
expressions of this kind, as the treatise is framed throughout
on an accommodating and hypothetical plan, which gives
occasion for a certain vein of irony. But in this letter he is
writing to the Jew Orobio, an escaped and living witness of
the tender mercies of the Inquisition, who, even if he shared
the liberal tendencies of many members of the Amsterdam
synagogue, would not be specially pleased by compliments
to Christianity. And it is very certain that Spinoza did not go
out of his way to please Van Velthuysen, for whose reading
the reply was ultimately intended.

The tone of the Tractatus and of Spinoza's remarks in
divers passages of other writings is indeed strongly anti
clerical. Spinoza regards clerical influence as a bad thing,
not so much on the ground that it is wrong to teach with
authority and as absolutely certain that which is false or
doubtful, as because such influence tends to disturb the order
of society and diminish respect for the civil law. Hence the
peculiar hostility with which Spinoza has been pursued by
professional theologians. But as regards individual belief
there is nothing irreligious or anti-religious to be found in
him. He would never have consented to his name, being
inscribed on the banner of a materialist crusade.

Notwithstanding the sharpness of this first passage of
arms, Van Velthuysen and Spinoza came into direct commu- ||
nication afterwards, and on terms of mutual respect, if not i
friendship. There is a letter1 from Spinoza to Velthuysen |
concerning his intention of publishing, together with some I
explanatory notes to the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,'
certain papers which appear to be no other than the corre
spondence we have just had before us. The letter seems to
be one of a series of at least two or three, and to have been
preserved only by accident. I give it here, however, for the
fine sense of literary courtesy which it shows.

1 Ep. 75-

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 71

' I am surprised at our friend Neustadt having told you
that I thought of replying to the writings against my treatise
which have been published for some time past, and intended
to include your MS. in the number. I am sure I never
intended to refute any of my opponents, so little did any of
them seem to me worth an answer. All I remember to
have said to Mr. Neustadt is that I purposed to publish some
notes explaining the more difficult passages of the treatise,
and to add to these your MS. and my answer, if I had your
leave for so doing. This I desired him to ask of you, and added
that in case you should be unwilling to grant it on the score
of certain expressions in the answer being rather severe, you
should be at full liberty either to amend or to cancel them.
Meanwhile I have no cause of offence against Mr. N. ; but I
thought it well to show you the real state of the case, so that,
if I cannot obtain your leave, I might at least make it clear
that I had no manner of design to publish your MS. against
your will. I believe, indeed, it may be done without any risk
to your reputation, provided your name is not affixed to it ;
but I will do nothing unless you grant me leave and licence
to publish it. But I am free to confess you would do me
a far greater favour if you would set down the arguments
with which you think you can attack my treatise, and add
them to your MS. ; and this I most heartily beseech you to
do. There is no one whose arguments I should be more
willing to consider, for I am aware that your only motive is
affection for the truth, and I know the candour of your mind ;
in the name of which I again entreat you not to decline
giving yourself this trouble.'

The scheme here mentioned was not carried out, and a
year or two afterwards Van Velthuysen published his argu
ments as an independent work. It is one of the polemics
against Spinoza mentioned with approbation by Colerus.

Leibnitz, who after Spinoza's death joined the popular cry
against him, appears in his lifetime among the list of his

72 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

correspondents. In 1671 he wrote to him, enclosing for his
opinion a note on the improvement of lenses. He addresses
him as an expert of well-known standing and authority :
1 Among your other merits known to fame, I understand that
you have excellent skill in optics, which persuades me to
address to you my essay, such as it is, as I shall not easily
find a better critic than yourself in this kind of inquiry.'
Spinoza replied courteously, and offered to send Leibnitz
a copy of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' if he had not
one already.1

In 1675 we hear that Tschirnhausen (of whom presently)
had met in Paris < a man of excellent learning, accomplished
in many sciences, and likewise free from vulgar theological
prejudice, byname Leibnitz,' who thought very highly of the
' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus/ and had (if he remembered
right) written about it to Spinoza.2 Tschirnhausen thought
he might safely be trusted with Spinoza's writings (i.e., the
Ethics in MS.), and that, for reasons he could explain on
occasion, it would be well worth Spinoza's while. The
answer to this overture was however more cautious than
might have been expected. Spinoza wrote to the friend
through whom it had been communicated that he thought he
already knew this Leibnitz by correspondence, but could not
tell what he was doing in France. From his letters he judged
him to be an accomplished and liberal-minded man, but he
thought it imprudent to trust him with the unpublished work
without knowing more of him. On the whole he would await
a further report from Tschirnhausen.3

Leibnitz afterwards, on his way home from Paris, paid a
visit to Spinoza. Whether they talked philosophy does not
appear. Leibnitz himself represented the conversation as
having been an ordinary if not trifling one, in which Spinoza

1 EPP. 51, 52.

3 There is no such matter in Leibnitz's one extant letter to Spinoza.
* Ep. 65^ (to Dr. Schaller of Amsterdam), Suppl. p. 317.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 73

told him some amusing stories about the politics of the time.1
He doubtless thought it necessary to avoid the suspicion of
having had too much to do with the heretic Spinoza,
and prudent to make a sort of apology for having visited
him at all. Leibnitz's depreciation of Spinoza's merits in
philosophy was such as to speak ill either for his penetration
or for his candour.

In the last two years of Spinoza's life we have a series of
important philosophical letters which bring him, as we now
know, into relation with one of the men who in the following
generation were diligent in extending the domain of science.
Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhausen (1651-1708) was of a
noble Bohemian family, and later in life attained high distinc
tion in mathematics and physics, and was at a comparatively
early age admitted to the French Academy of Sciences. He
became especially known by his improvements in the
construction of lenses and burning glasses, with which he
produced extraordinary effects, and his name has left a per
manent place in mathematics by his investigation of the class
of curves known as caustics. The foundation of his scientific
taste was laid during his studies at the university of Leyden,
and we may well suppose that it was on the special ground of
optics that he first sought Spinoza's acquaintance. When we
meet with him in the letters he is already on the footing of an
old friend. His name was suppressed by the editors of the
' Opera Posthuma,' like those of several other of Spinoza's
correspondents, and his part, formerly attributed by conjecture
to Dr. Meyer, has only been restored to him since the full
text of these letters was published by Van Vloten. He did
not, like Leibnitz, turn against Spinoza's memory ; but
neither did he make any open attempt to vindicate it. The
work by which he is best known, * Medicina Mentis ' (Amster
dam, 1687), draws largely and tacitly on Spinoza's treatise

1 ' Anecdota'non contemnenda de rebus illius temporis.' See Spin. Op. ed.
Paulus, 2. 672 sqq. ; and cf. Van Vloten, Supp. p. 307.

74 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

on the ' Amendment of the Understanding.' The borrowing
is of an extent which in our more scrupulous age would amply
warrant a charge of plagiary ; but when we consider the lax
habits of the time in this respect, and the prejudice which
any open reference to Spinoza would certainly have excited
against Tschirnhausen's work, we should be at least cautious
in blaming him. If his object was to gain a hearing for
Spinoza's ideas among the respectable public, there can be no
doubt that the course he adopted was the most plausible if not
the only practicable one. At the same time it is certain that
Tschirnhausen, without any such excuse, gave some offence
to both Huygens and Leibnitz by his use of unpublished
matter which they had communicated to him.1

Tschirnhausen was an eager student of Descartes, and
also of Spinoza's yet unpublished writings. In 1675-6 he
made a journey to London, where he exerted himself with
success to remove an ill opinion which Boyle and Oldenburg
had formed of the * Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' and of
Spinoza himself; and on his way back he stayed in Paris,
and, as we have seen, made the acquaintance of Leibnitz.
During this time he exchanged letters with Spinoza on
several metaphysical points. His questions and objections
were the most deserving of attention of any that Spinoza
had received. They are always intelligent, and one or two
are so acute and forcibly put that it would be difficult for a
modern critic to improve upon them. Even an uncritical
reader may perceive strong evidence of their aptness in the
fact that Spinoza himself found considerable difficulty in
meeting them. Tschirnhausen's power of appreciation and
criticism does not seem however to have been accompanied
by much capacity for original work in philosophy. He en
tertained an exaggerated notion of the advances in physical
discovery which might be secured by an a priori doctrine of
method. We already see traces of this in his correspondence

1 Van Vloten, Benedict us de Spinoza, App. III.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 75

with Spinoza, and at a later time his too sanguine expecta
tions were gently rebuked by Huygens.1 But with all allow
ances for errors of judgment and other human infirmities, his
career was a useful and honourable one, and to have been
Tschirnhausen's master is no contemptible addition to
Spinoza's memory.

There is yet one correspondent to be recorded who stands
alone. In the autumn of 1675 Spinoza received a strange
epistle 2 dated from Florence, and written by one Albert
Burgh, now believed to be the same pupil and companion
whose facilities of intercourse with Spinoza were so much
envied by Simon da Vries, and of whose temper and capacities
Spinoza, in writing to De Vries, expressed a very doubtful
opinion. He now announced that he had been received into
the fold of the Catholic Church ; the particular circumstances
of his conversion might be seen in a letter he had written to
Professor Craane of Leyden ; his present purpose was to offer a
few remarks important for Spinoza's own welfare. And with
that he launched forth at no small length into denunciation
of Spinoza's profane and chimerical philosophy, mixed with
compassion (of the right ecclesiastical sort) for the wretched
estate of his soul if he should persist in his damnable errors.
He marvels how a man of Spinoza's abilities, eager in the
pursuit of truth, could let himself be so deceived by the devil.
' You assume,' he asks with delightful simplicity, ' that you
have at last found the true philosophy. How do you know
that your philosophy is the best of all those which have ever
been taught in the world, are now taught, or shall ever be
taught hereafter ? To say nothing of what may be devised

1 See their correspondence in Van Vloten's Supplement, which is in many
respects curious. Tschirnhausen's statements as to an expected pension from the
Academy of Sciences, and the amount of assistance he required ' ad studia bona
excolenda,' show that the endowment of research is no new invention. Huygens'
just estimate of the amount of inevitable labour still lying before science is also
worth noting.

2 Ep. 73-

;6 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

in the future, have you examined all those philosophies both
ancient and modern which are taught here, in India, and all
the world over ? And even supposing you have duly ex
amined them, how do you know that you have chosen the
best? . . .

' Do not flatter yourself,' cries the triumphant proselyte,
' with the reflection that the Calvinists or so-called Reformed
divines, the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Socinians, or others
cannot refute your doctrines. All those poor creatures are as
wretched as yourself, and sitting along with you in the shadow
of death. How dare you set yourself up above all the
patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, doctors, and confessors
of the Church ? Miserable man and worm upon the earth
that you are, yea, ashes and food for worms, how can you
confront the eternal wisdom with your unspeakable blasphemy?
What foundation have you for this rash, insane, deplorable,
accursed presumption ? What devilish pride puffs you up to
pass judgment on mysteries which Catholics themselves de
clare to be incomprehensible ? ' This and much more of the
same fashion is enforced with arguments which it would be
intolerably tedious to repeat. One of them however may
deserve to be singled out : it is that, because Julius Caesar
would probably have laughed at a prophecy of gunpowder, it
is unreasonable to disbelieve in the divining rod, alchemy,
magic, and demonology. Burgh protests that he has written
to Spinoza ' with a truly Christian intention ; first that you
may understand the love I bear to you, though a heathen ; and
next, to beseech you not to persist in perverting others.'
Finally he threatens Spinoza with eternal damnation if he
does not repent of his wicked and abominable errors. It will
be remembered that the immortal discourse of Brother Peter
in the ' Tale of a Tub ' ends with invoking similar consequences
on the hearers if they offer to believe otherwise ; but the
genuine crudity of Albert Burgh's effusion hardly leaves
room for even a Swift to add any touch of caricature.

SPINOZAS CORRESPONDENCE. 77

Spinoza was at first unwilling to make any answer to such
an attack. But some common friends, who had known Burgh
and, with Spinoza, hoped better things of him, represented that
it was but due to their old friendship to try the effect of re
monstrance. Being once prevailed upon to write, Spinoza could
not but show his sense of the extreme folly and insolence
displayed in Burgh's letter. The arrogance of it would have
been sufficiently gross if addressed to a Protestant ; to one
who had never professed himself a Christian at all it was ex
travagant. The answer is far the sharpest ever written by
Spinoza.1 For serious argument he had little occasion ; the
convert's attack on what he called chimerical philosophy was
easily answered out of his own mouth.

' You who assume that you have at last found the best
religion, or rather the best teachers, and fixed your credulity
on them, Jiozv do you know tJiat they are the best among these
who have taught other religions, or now teach or shall hereafter
teach them ? Have you examined all those religions both ancient
and modern which are taught here and in India and all the world
over? And even supposing you have duly examined them, lion
do you know that you have chosen the best? '

Spinoza recalls to the hot-headed proselyte, who fancies
that Rome has a monopoly of all the virtues, that in Alva's
persecution his own ancestors had suffered valiantly for the
Protestant religion. The historical claims of the Church of
Rome are met not with direct criticism but with an un
expected counter-attack.

' As for what you add touching the common consent of
multitudes of men, the uninterrupted continuance of the
Church, and the like, that is the very same old tale as the
Pharisees'. They bring forward their myriad witnesses with

1 Some remarks of Leibnitz's on this letter, of no great importance, may be
found at the end of M. Foucher de Careil's Leibniz, Descartes, el Spinoza ;
and some sufficiently absurd reflections by the admiring editor at the end of the
' Premier Memoire ' in the same volume.

78 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

no less confidence than the devotees of Rome, and those
witnesses repeat their traditions, as if they were facts within
their own knowledge, no less stoutly than the Roman ones.
Their lineage they carry back to Adam. They boast as
proudly as any that their Church has been continued to this
day, and stands unshaken in spite of the enmity of heathens
and Christians. They have more antiquity for them than
any other sect. They proclaim with one voice that their
tradition comes direct from God, and that they alone possess
the word of God both written and unwritten. It cannot be
denied that all heresies have branched off from them, while
they have remained firm during several thousand years with
no political power to compel them, but in the mere strength of
fanaticism. The miracles they report would weary a thousand
nimble tongues. But their most notable claim is that they
count far more martyrs than any other nation, and they daily
increase the number of those who have with singular con
stancy suffered for the faith they profess ; and this is no fable.
I know myself, among others, of one Judah, called the Believer,
who in the midst of the fire, when he was supposed already
dead, began to sing the psalm, To thee, O God, I commit my
soul, and so expired singing it.1

'The discipline of the Roman Church, which you so much
praise, is, I confess, politic and brings gain to many. I should
think, indeed, that there was none more convenient for
deceiving the vulgar and subduing men's minds, were it not
for the discipline of the Mahometan Church, which far excels

1 This was Don Lope de Vera y Alarcon de San Clemente, a Spanish nobleman
who was converted to Judaism through the study of Hebrew, and was burnt at
Valladolid on the 25th of July, 1644. Gratz, Gesch. derjuden, x. 101. Dr. Gratz
supposes that Spinoza here speaks as an eye-witness, and must consequently have
been born and passed his youth in Spain. But the sense of Spinoza's words is amply
satisfied by referring them to the notoriety which the event doubtless had among the
Jewish congregation of Amsterdam. It cannot be suggested that in § 3 Spinoza
means to say that Burgh had witnessed the sufferings of his own ancestors under
the Duke of Alva. But the phrase (parentes tuos nosti, qui . . . ipse quendam
Judam . . . novi, qui . . . ) is exactly the same in both cases.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 79

it. For since that superstition had its rise, no schism has
taken place in their Church.'

Spinoza means, I suppose, that in the history of Islam
there is no great doctrinal rupture comparable to the Reforma
tion in Europe. He must have known from his study of the
Jewish philosophers, who abound in allusions to the Arabic
schools, that Mahometanism has no lack of sects to show.
It shares with Judaism, however, the advantage of never
having complicated its fundamental formula. But under the
circumstances Spinoza could not be expected to write with
minute exactness, even if he were capable of it. A broad and
rapid presentation of things was the only instrument that
could possibly have any effect on Albert Burgh's sublime
ignorance.

8o SPINOZA; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER III.

IDEAS AND SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY.

Laudemus viros gloriosos, et parentes nostros in generatione sua. — EcCLUS.
xliv. i.

Lo, thou hast learned that whosoever tells a thing in the name of him that said
it brings redemption to the world. — Pereq R. MEIR (in C. Taylor's ' Sayings of the
Jewish Fathers').

Part /. — Judaism and Neo-Platonism.

THE time has passed when systems of philosophy could be
regarded as final and absolute. It is not so very long since
it was assumed as a matter of course that the key to all the
secrets of the universe was in man's hands, and that only
culpable perversity could fail to find it. In our own day the
nearest approach to a dogmatic philosophy of the old pattern
has been a doctrine which proceeds on the systematic assump
tion that the problems of philosophy are insoluble. There
are some who find in this state of things the death-warrant of
philosophy itself, and thereupon exult or revolt, according to
their temper, as at a matter irrevocably judged. But such are
over-hasty, forgetting that the change which has come over
men's view of the great problems of the world is not single or
casual, but is the last step in a vast movement of human
thought which has profoundly modified our whole conception
of the nature and limits of knowledge. Science has for good
and all abandoned the dream of finality. The discoverer
well knows that his discovery, while it brings new certainty
and new power over things, will also throw open a new series
of questions. In the first flush of conquering advance, armed

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 8r

with instruments whose power seemed unbounded, and
mighty in their new-born freedom of mind, the leaders of the
great revival saw visions of a goal near at hand. Let the
right method be once obtained, and a few simple principles
might suffice to explain the whole course of nature. So
thought Descartes and his ardent followers, among whom we
have already seen Spinoza's friend Tschirnhausen. Soj'
thought Leibnitz even after the warning of their failures. A
few more cautious workers, with the prescience which only
practical experience gives, refused to be dazzled by these
magnificent and facile promises. Thus Huygens perceived
that the course which lay before scientific explorers was at
best a long and arduous one. Thus Newton taught the world
the lesson of patient exactness by his great example of self-
denial. But the world is slow to learn, and as the work of
science grew and multiplied it admired with imperfect know
ledge, accepting provisional or even erroneous results as
absolute truth. At last the various paths of science were
seen to converge into a broad road. The atomic theory brought
chemistry into relation with general physics, and the ideas of
correlation and continuity drew together the several branches
of physical knowledge, while the undulatcry theory of light
opened to the scientific imagination a new world coextensive
with the sensible universe. But it was also seen that this was
not the end of questionings, but the beginning of new and
higher questionings. A fresh problem arose in the place
of every one that had been solved or set aside : and, so far
from resting on her conquests, science only girded herself for
a more strenuous continuance of the campaign. We stand
face to face with infinite mysteries in the things we see and
handle ; we have to do no longer with inert masses pushed
and pulled through space by a convenient something called
Force, but myriadfold complexities of rushing, vibrating,
pulsating units, each of them endowed with a definite charac
ter and persisting in it against the assaults of the whole

;

82 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

universe ; endless motion, shock and counter-shock, taken up
and reverberated by the all-pervading ether; everywhere
restless activity, and changes rapid beyond our conception,
though numbered and measured in our calculations ; a new
and immense variety in the manifestations of nature, a
boundless and unexplored wealth in her powers. The very
elements of our physical knowledge are transformed. Only a
few years ago we talked of Matter and Force as if they were
things obvious and within our grasp. The doctrine of Energy
has come to tell us that even in the elements we must always
be learning afresh. Descartes, and Spinoza after him, spoke
of Motion as if it were a real thing. Down to the present
time we have been brought up to speak of Force as if it were
a real thing. Now Force has become either a mere compen
dious symbol in the description of motion, or a worse than idle
name to hide our ignorance ; and matter is almost reduced to
a vehicle for Energy. Yet the certainty of the natural sciences
is not shaken, nor is the ardour of research abated. We still
seek knowledge, knowing that when we have found it we shall
have to seek still farther.

Was it any wonder, then, that philosophy, having not only
the difficulties of scientific inquiry to contend with, but other
peculiar ones differing in kind from those encountered in the
natural sciences, should be slower to enter into the critical
period in which knowledge becomes conscious of its provi
sional character ? Is it surprising, on the other hand, that
philosophy also should at last conform to the conditions
that science has already recognized ? And if it does submit
to those conditions, why should its work become fruitless or
worthless any more than the work of science ? We can see,
indeed, that it is not so. There are no longer Platonist and
Aristotelian schools, but Plato and Aristotle are more exactly
studied, more truly honoured and revered, than they ever
were in the days when men blindly worshipped them.
The same is true, though less conspicuously true, of the great

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 83

names of more modern times. Kant certainly has disciple
who may be called after his name ; but that would be a very
shallow estimate which should reckon the power of Kant in
philosophy by the number of professed Kantians in the world.
For the work done by Kant was not that he established this
and that proposition about the mental mechanism of percep
tion and thought, but that he announced the entry of philo
sophy into her critical age. His own application of the critical
method may or may not be correct, it may or may not be
complete ; but his work stands nevertheless. Ardent and
strenuous thinkers began to strive against it when it was
barely finished ; they have striven ever since to find some
form in which dogmatic philosophy could be revived, and
they have all striven in vain. The harvest of the ' Critique of
Pure Reason ' is reaped by hundreds and thousands who
know nothing of the Categories and Antinomies. It is not
systems that make the life of philosophy, but the ideas of
which systems are the perishable framework ; and the phi
losopher's place among his fellows is determined not by
counting the heads of those who accept his system as a whole, ,
but by the strength and fruitfulness of the ideas which he y
sets astir in men's minds.

In every scheme of philosophy, then, which is worth
serious consideration, there is a vital core of ideas embodied
in a frame of more or less artificial construction. It is the
task of the history of philosophy to trace from generation to
generation the life and growth of these underlying ideas ; to
disengage them from their local and temporary incidents ;
and thereby to keep a clear pathway for the work of philoso
phy itself. This is the spirit in which we would fain approach
that splendid effort of constructive genius which Spinoza has
left us in his ' Ethics ; ' not with a minute curiosity seeking
for mere curiosity's sake to retrace 'each individual stone
of his building to the quarry whence he may have hewn it,
nor yet with the incurious and barren admiration which

G 2

84 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

forgets that even the loftiest genius is conditioned by the
materials given to the workman's hand. It has been said of
Spinoza that his theory was after all but a system, and that
like all other systems it has passed away never to come back.
Such a charge, if a charge it be, we can freely afford to admit.
Spinoza did not seek to found a sect, and he founded none.
Nay, we will go farther ; it is at least doubtful whether a
single person can be named who has accepted the system of
the ' Ethics ' in all points as it stands. But that is because
Spinoza's mind is above the level of the people who hunger
and thirst after systems ; and for that very reason the thought
of Spinoza's ' Ethics ' has slowly but surely interpenetrated
the thought of the world, and even now works mightily in it,
while other systems welcomed in their own day as new reve
lations are now in very truth past and forgotten. Or are
we to go, perchance, in search of systems which have not
passed away ? Assuredly such are to be found : they drag
on their barren life, a fixed monotony of centuries, in the
schools of Brahmans and Buddhists and Confucians, who
have drained off the life-giving words of their ancient masters
into labyrinthine canals and stagnant pools. There in the
overteemed East is the limbo of unchangeable systems, pre
served from the fertilizing breath of change by a universal
inertia. If Spinoza's philosophy were identical, as not a few
shallow critics have fancied, with Indian pantheism or indif-
ferentism, then Spinozism would be an existing, unchanged,
and unshaken system ; but such an existence and such
security are the death of philosophy.

In order to consider the origin and growth of Spinoza's
philosophical ideas, it will be necessary to anticipate to some
extent our account of his finished doctrine. The first and
leading idea in Spinoza's philosophy— the only part of it, in
fact, which has at all entered into the notion commonly formed
of his system— is that of the unity and

w9rM- Nature, as conceived by him, includes thought no less

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY.

than things, and the order of nature knows no interruption.
Again, there is not a world of thought opposed to or inter
fering with a world of things ; we have everywhere the j>ame
reality under different aspects. Nature is one as well as uni
form. Now there is a thing to be well marked about this
conception of Spinoza's ; it is itself two-sided, having an ideal
or_ speculative, and a physical or scientific aspect. On the
one hand we find a line of reasoning derived from the meta
physical treatment of theology ; in other words, a philosophy
starting from the consideration of the nature and perfection of
God. On the other hand, we find a view of the existing universe
guarded by the requirements of exact natural science, so
that the philosopher who follows this track is bound over to
see that his speculation, whatever flights it may take, shall at
all events not contradict physics. The combination of these \
two elements is one of the most characteristic features of I
Spinoza's philosophy. No one had before him attempted I
such a combination with anything like the same knowledge
of the conditions of the task. Few have even after him been
so courageous and straightforward in the endeavour. The
pjmthejsJ; or mystical element, as we may call it (though
both terms are ambiguous and liable to abuse), is not merely
placed beside the scientific element, but fused into one with
it. Here, then, is a twofold root of Spinoza's conception of
the universe, and each branch of it calls for an account of the
soil that nourished it.

The greater part of Spinoza's ' Ethics ' is occupied with
I the application of his general ideas to investigating the nature
of man. The body and the mind are not treated as two se
parate entities working upon one another, much less is the
one allowed to be the product of the other. Mind and body
are in truth one and the same. That which is mind to the

inner sense fs (or if accessible would be) body to the outer
sense. There is no mind without body ; but also there is no
body without mind. Physical and mental events run exactly

86 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

parallel to one another ; the physical sequence cannot inter
fere with the mental sequence, or the mental with the phy
sical, just because they are two sides of the same thing. Such
is the metaphysical theory which determines Spinoza's psy
chology. It is implied in, and directly deduced from, his
general view of the world ; but it is convenient to speak of it
separately, for reasons which will appear, as the monistic.

element.

When he comes to human actions, Spinoza regards them
as a particular case of the operation of universal causes.
Every living thing has appetite, an impulse making for certain
ends and determined by the tendency or effort (conatus) of all
things towards self-preservation, which effort is given by the
very fact that the individual thing does exist as such. When
appetite as thus understood is conscious, it becomes desire.
With this fundamental idea Spinoza works out an account of
the passions which is by general consent his masterpiece,
and which even now may be said to stand unsurpassed. In
the ethical field of action also the self-preserving effort is the
ultimate fact of life. ' The foundation of virtue is no other
than the effort to maintain one's own being, and man's hap
piness consists in the power of so doing.' 1 That is the first
law of our moral nature in the scientific sense of law ; it is a
universal fact which must be faced and reckoned with. But
this does not lead to a system of selfishness. For man is
known by experience to be a social animal, and this is no less
a law of his being. Thus he can maintain his being only in
society. As an individual living in society, and unable
to be solitary if he would, he must preserve society in order to
preserve himself; or rather the preservation and welfare
of society are his only true preservation and welfare. Thus
the foundation of morality is essentially social. To this element
of Spinoza's doctrine we shall refer as the idea of natural
law. The choice of that term will explain itself hereafter.

1 Eth. 4. 1 8, Schol.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 87

We need not say anything thus early of Spinoza's follow
ing out of this idea in politics. Of the last part of the
* Ethics ' we shall, only say here that, notwithstanding its place
in the finished work, it is in the main to be assigned to what
we have called the mystical element in the principles of Spi
noza's philosophy, and is to be explained, so far as it may be
capable of historical explanation, by reference to the same
sources. The interpretation is, however, difficult at best :
the result I have myself arrived at after much doubt will be
submitted to the reader in its due order.

This division enables us to give at once in a summary
way some kind of introductory general notion of what is at
present known or surmised about the birth and growth of
Spinoza's philosophical ideas.

The pantheist or mystical element is traceci to the medi
aeval Jewish philosophers, with whose works we know that
Spinoza was familiar. This is to some extent matter of direct
evidence. A claim has also been put in, and with likelihood
practically amounting to certainty, for Giordano Bruno. Now
Bruno himself was subject in certain ways to Oriental influ
ences, while the Jewish and Arabic schools of the Middle
Ages were again strongly imbued with Neo-Platonism, and
Neo-Platonism in turn has a semi- Oriental character. It
seems impossible, even if it were worth while, to disen
tangle all the details. But it remains sufficiently clear, what
ever theory we may adopt, that the East has a considerable
share in this portion of Spinoza's materials.

The scientific element may be assigned without hesitation
to Descartes, though Spinoza carried out the scientific view of
the world farther and more vigorously than Descartes himself
But as regards its union with the mystical element it is ma
terial to remark that a nascent scientific impulse runs through
the naturalism of the Renaissance philosophy as represented
by Bruno and others ; and thus the line of contact was in a
manner already traced.

88 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

The monistic element is given by reaction from the
dualism of Cartesian philosophy, and determined chiefly, as
I think, by considerations of a scientific order. The pantheist
idea may also have its part. But we can strike no exact
account between the two, for Spinoza had completed the
fusion of the mystical and the scientific principles before he
settled his monism in its final form.1

The idea of natural law remains, and is the most inde-
Ypendent work of Spinoza's genius. Ideas and suggestions of
a general kind he had from Descartes, and a good deal of more
definite material from Hobbes, who is in fact his master in
politics ; and there is an extraordinary amount of resemblance
to Stoic doctrine, suggestive at the first glance of imitation.
But closer attention will show that such a supposition presents
greater difficulties than that of coincidence.

It would seem, if the foregoing statement can be accepted,
that the really practical part of Spinoza's philosophy, that
by which it is now operative and keeps hold on men's living
interests, is also the part which is most peculiarly his own. I
am aware that such a conclusion may not be free from uncon
scious bias, nor is it to be assumed that historical criticism
has said its last word. It is certain that critics have hitherto
busied themselves much more with the metaphysical than
with the ethical part of Spinoza's system ; and it is yet to
be seen whether the revival of interest in ethical problems
which has lately shown itself may not be fruitful in this
region. It may be, though such is not my own judgment,
that if little has been found here, it is because there has been
little search. In the meantime I can only beg the reader to
use his own diligence in verifying whatever is advanced.

First let us take in its purely speculative aspect the idea
of the nature of things as one and uniform. Much light
has been thrown on the growth of this idea in Spinoza's mind

1 This appears from the advance of the Ethics on the Tractatulus de Deo et
Homine (see next note) in that respect.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 89

by the discovery of his unpublished ' Essay on God and
Man.' l The date of its composition is only approximately
known, nor is the work itself a uniform whole. On the one
hand it must be earlier than any of Spinoza's other writings,
and the absence of any mention of it in the letters goes to show
that by 1661 at latest it was for Spinoza himself a superseded
work. On the other hand it was written originally in Latin,
and therefore after he had mastered the language under Van
den Ende, and it shows familiarity with Descartes. We shall
probably not be far wrong in placing it about the time of
Spinoza's excommunication. Possibly the essay or some
portions of it, privately circulated among friends, may have
been the ' abominable heresies which he taught.' Compared
with the ' Ethics ' or even with the earlier treatise on the
Amendment of the Understanding, it is a brilliant but im
mature performance. Inasmuch as we possess the ' Ethics/
the essay has only a historical value, but that value is very
great. It shows us the ferment and conflict of elements
received from different quarters and not yet subdued to their
places and proportions in a new structure. As to the matter
now in hand, it gives positive proof that Spinoza really
worked out his metaphysic by starting in the first instance
from theology, and did not first conceive his metaphysic and
then clothe it in theological terms. In psychology and
everything that has a scientific bearing he was still dominated
by Descartes when he wrote the essay. Not that he even
then adopted the Cartesian doctrines.

He was struggling, but as yet without a perfectly fixed
aim, to work out for himself the reconciliation of Cartesian
analysis with a priori speculation. The leaders of mediaeval
Jewish thought had endeavoured to recast their theology in

1 See the account of Spinoza's works in the Introduction, and the monographs
on this essay there cited. It is preserved only in an indifferently executed Dutch
version, which seems to have been made in the early part of the eighteenth century.
The original title, rendered by ' Korte Verhandeling van God, den mensch, en
deszelfs welstand,' was probably Tractatidus de. Deo et Homine eiiisque Felicitate.

90 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

an Aristotelian mould given them by the philosophic culture
of their time. Spinoza in turn, beginning where they had
left off, set himself to refashion their handiwork with the
instruments furnished by Descartes. But he took up the
work with the resolve to carry it through at all costs, and the
result was that both matter and method became transformed
in his hands. It must remain doubtful, I think, whether
Spinoza himself was ever fully aware of the amount of the
transformation he had effected, especially as regards his theo
logical premisses. He could not have been what he was
without the Jewish doctors or without Descartes, but his
philosophy is neither Cartesian nor Jewish.

The essay likewise gives to my mind strong reasons
against holding (though it is commonly assumed as if it were
certain) that Spinoza was ever actually a Cartesian. For
though as to certain parts it is Cartesian in language and
arrangement, in those very parts the essay enunciates anti-
Cartesian doctrine even more pointedly than the 'Ethics'
afterwards did. Not only is it denied that sorrow and the
passions derived from it can ever be useful — whereas Descartes
says that sorrow is in a manner even more necessary for men
than joy — but all passions whatever, except the divine love,1
and, in a qualified sense, one or two others of the more
active kind, are repudiated as unworthy of the philosophic
life. If Spinoza was a Cartesian at any time it must have
been before the essay was written ; and moreover he could
not have become a Cartesian without utterly breaking with
the Jewish philosophic traditions, on whose lines, however, or at
any rate from out of them, he is working in the essay. We
should be driven to suppose, then, that Spinoza broke with
Jewish literature to take up Descartes, and becoming dis
satisfied with Descartes, turned back again to the Jewish
authors.2 But violent oscillations of this kind are not in

1 In treating this as a passion the Essay differs from the Ethics.

2 This is in fact the theory of Dr. Joel. He puts the supposed return to

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 91

Spinoza's character, to say nothing of the time between
Spinoza's introduction to Descartes and his composition of
this essay being too short to afford room for them. And
even so the essay should present to us, not a juxtaposition of
non-Cartesian metaphysic and Cartesian psychology, but
modified Cartesian doctrine throughout. And this it certainly
does not. I conclude, therefore, not only that Spinoza was
not solely dependent on Descartes, but that he was never a
Cartesian at all.1

The argument of the essay starts, in a purely a priori
manner, from the nature and attributes of God. The absolute
uniformity of nature, and the implied rejection of final causes,
are deduced from the consideration of his freedom and per
fection. The universe is governed by divine laws, which,
unlike those of man's making, are immutable, inviolable, and
an end to themselves, not instruments for the attainment of
particular objects. The love of God is man's only true good.
From other passions we can free ourselves, but not from love,
' because for the weakness of our nature we could not subsist
without the enjoyment of something that may strengthen us
by our union with it.' Only the knowledge of God will enable
us to subdue the hurtful passions. This, as the source of all
knowledge, is the most perfect of all ; and, inasmuch as all
knowledge is derived from the knowledge of God, we may
know God better than we know ourselves. This knowledge in
turn leads to the love of God, which is the soul's union with
him. The union of the soul with God is its second birth, and
therein consist man's immortality and freedom.

The detachment from ordinary cares and interests in
which the essay makes man's happiness to consist is carried
so far as to approach quietism. A great contrast is presented
to Spinoza's later manner in such passages as the following,

Jewish philosophy as late as the composition of the Tractates Theologico~
Politicus, in which he finds the occasion for it.

1 The same conclusion has been arrived at by Dr. Avenarius in his very care
ful discussion of Spinoza's philosophical development.

92 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

which occur in the description of Hate. It is said to be pro
duced, in common with other passions, by false opinion.

' Hate is the right contrary to love, and ariseth from the
delusion that is begotten of mere opinion. For when a man
hath concluded concerning such and such a thing that it is
good, and another comes and doth somewhat to the prejudice
of the same, then the first conceives hate against him so doing.
The which should have no place in him if the true good were
known, as we shall show hereafter. For all that is or may be
thought of is in comparison with the true good [the love of God]
nothing but mere wretchedness, and is not he that so affects
wretched things much more worthy of pity than of hate ? ' l

In the ' Ethics ' the ordinary pleasures and amenities of
life, though not exclusive or sufficient objects of a reasonable
man's pursuit, nor to be lamented for when they are not
attainable, are treated as something very different from ' mere
wretchedness.' And we shall see that the love of God,
though still presented as the crown and perfect state of the
human mind, acquires a much more intellectual character, if
indeed it can be at all distinguished from pure speculative
knowledge.

It appears therefore that the theological element, however
transformed subsequently, may claim the right of primogeni
ture among Spinoza's ideas. We shall be pursuing an order
not only historical in point of actual chronology, but just and
fitting with regard to the probable history of Spinoza's thought,
if we first turn our attention to the Jewish doctors of the middle
ages who brought a philosophical treatment to bear upon
theological problems.

Partly coinciding in time with Catholic scholasticism, but
with their rise and culminating period nearly a century earlier,
a series of Jewish philosophers in Spain, Provence, and the
East, did work which has a far more important place in the
general history of philosophy than has commonly been allowed

1 Korte Verhandeling) part ii. cap. 3.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 93

to it. The task they set themselves was the same in kind as
that of the schoolmen, who, in spite of religious difference,
joined hands with them on the common ground of Aristotle,
and used their work with open acknowledgment and respect.
They strove, in one word, to systematize theology on an
Aristotelian footing. For this purpose it was necessary
to embark on a critical and philosophical interpretation of
Scripture ; and in this undertaking the comparatively
undefined character of Jewish orthodoxy secured them a
certain amount of freedom.1 Or rather philosophy presented
itself to Jewish speculation as an enlightened interpretation
of the hidden meaning of the law. Thus Moses ben Maimon
and Ibn Ezra were leaders in biblical criticism no less than in
philosophy. The ideas they put forward in this field weie to
be carried out to their full development in the ' Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus.' Spinoza's object is indeed opposite to
that of Maimonides. So far from finding philosophy in the
Scriptures, he maintains that it is idle to seek it there ; and
the sharpness of his criticism on Maimonides' artificial system
of interpretation has probably distracted attention from that
which they really have in common. Maimonides' work was con
tinued by Levi ben Gerson, or Gersonides (born at Bagnal in
Provence in 1288, living in 1340), who, professing to be a mere
interpreter of the Scriptures and to rely on them as the source
of every kind of knowledge, was at the same time more
thoroughly Aristotelian than his predecessors. His dis
covery of Aristotelian metaphysics in the Song of Solomon
was probably the extreme feat of the Jewish theologico-
philosophical dialectic.

1 The Mahometan schools enjoyed the same advantage. Strictly speaking,
neither Judaism nor Islam have any dogmatic theology at all. At the same time
there must have been in practice a good deal of restraint. Maimonides expressly
warns his readers that on many points he will be deliberately obscure ; and Ibn
Ezra could only hint with elaborate mystery that ' the Canaanite was then in the
land ' could not have been the language of Moses' generation. The intervals o(
absolute silence in his commentary on Isaiah are even more significant.

94 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

The influence of these writers is most marked in the
'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' with which we are not
immediately concerned in this place. In the purely philo
sophical part of Spinoza's work it was comparatively slight :
it is perhaps not too much to say that there are only traces of
it in the ' Ethics,' apart from the doctrine of the mind's eter
nity in the fifth part, which I believe comes from the Averro-
ists through Gersonides. Still the points of affinity are notable.
The following are specimens of those which may be found in
Maimonides' great work, the ' More Nebuchim.' l

The will and the wisdom of God are regarded as insepar
able. And not only is there no real distinction between the
divine attributes, but no attribute whatever can be predicated
of God in the ordinary sense. Even eternity and existence,
as applied to him, are not synonymous, but merely homonymous
with the same terms in any other application.2 This, however,
is by no means peculiar to Maimonides ; it is a common
possession of the scholastic writers, and is distinctly enounced
in the treatise on mystical theology which bears the name of
Dionysius the Areopagite. Probably it might be traced much
farther back by any one conversant with Neo-Platonism. The
application of the principle to God's knowledge as distinguished
from man's was strenuously disputed by Levi ben Gerson.

The existence of God is involved in his essence ; other
wise of the existence of any finite creature, which may be
considered as an accident in the logical sense.3

God coexists with the creation as its cause in actu, not as
a cause in potentia, which precedes the effect in time.4

1 Edited by Dr. Munk, sub tit. Le Guide des Egarcs, with literal French trans
lation, i

2 Cap. 56, and elsewhere.

3 Capp. 57, 58.

4 Cap. 69. One may be allowed to note (though not here relevant)
Maimonides' answer to the standing question why the world, if created in time,
was created at one time rather than another. He says it is just like asking why
there exists a certain number, neither more nor less, of individuals of any kind—
e.g. the fixed stars.

SOURCES OF SPINOZAS PHILOSOPHY. 95

Perfect intellect forms no conception of good and evil, only \
of true and false. Such was the first state of Adam. Good )
and evil belong to the region of probable opinion.1

Dr. Joel also calls attention to Maimonides' reflections on
final causes as being fitted to prepare the way for Spinoza's
entire rejection of them.2 Maimonides holds that the con
ceptions of design and final cause have no intelligible applica
tion except as regards things created in time.

ChasdaiCreskas of Barcelona, and afterwards of Saragossa,
who lived in the latter part of the fourteenth and early part
of the fifteenth century, was a more daring and original
thinker than his predecessors, though to a certain extent
in the interest of orthodoxy. He broke with the Peripatetic
tradition to strike out an independent line of his own, and
Dr. Joel's research has shown that he stands in a closer rela
tion to Spinoza than any other of the Jewish philosophers./
His principal work, the ' Light of the Lord ' (Or Adonai),
finished in 1410, contains many things which come near to
characteristic points of Spinoza's philosophy. Some of these
points are already well developed.

He censures as fallacious the notion of infinite extension
being made up of measurable parts (cf. Spinoza, Eth. i. 15
schol., Ep. 29) : he also holds matter to be eternal, the act v
of creation consisting only in the ordering of it ; and maintains
that the material world, being good in its kind (which he
takes, I presume, as a/truth known by revelation), participates
in the Divine natur/. The contrast of this with the Cartesian
theory of substances distinct in genere probably had something
to do with Spinoza's conception of extension as an attribute
coequal with thought.

Again, the perfection of God consists not in knowledge, as
the Aristotelians say, but in love. This love is what deter
mines God to creation, as at the same time a necessity of his

1 Cap. 2.

2 Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinoza 's (in fieitrage zur Gesch. der Philos.).

96 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

nature and an act of will. Love being the chief attribute of
v /God, the perfection of any creature depends on the extent to
which it shares therein : thus the love of God (for its own sake,
not as a means of salvation) is the chief end of man. We have
already had occasion to see what an important part is assigned
to this in the essay 'On God and Man ' which preceded
Spinoza's Ethics.

Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is Chasdai's thorough
determinism. He explicitly denies that any event, whether
depending on human choice or not, can be called possible or
contingent in an absolute sense. It is inconceivable, he says,
' that two men, being themselves of like temper and character,
and having before them like objects of choice in like circum
stances, should choose differently.' Volitions are determined
by motives as much as anything else in nature is determined.
/ An act of free will is free in so far as it is not compelled, but
\pecessary in so far as it is not uncaused. The argument on
this topic seems to be fully worked out, and to deal with most
of the points that have been made in later controversy on the
subject. The fallacy of fatalism, for example, is clearly
enough exposed. The objector who says, If all things that
happen are necessary, why do men take pains to compass
their ends ? forgets that things are necessary only with refer
ence to their conditions, and that in the case of human
undertakings forethought and labour are among the conditions.
Reward and punishment, as the consequences of good and
bad actions, are themselves part of the necessary order of
things. If it is asked, How is it just that the wicked should
be punished, if their wickedness is necessary? Chasdai an
swers, with Zeno before him and Spinoza after him, that their
punishment is necessary too. Reward and punishment,
commands and prohibitions, are nevertheless ordained by
Providence as means to lead men to salvation. The love of
God is man's chief good, even as love is God's own perfection :
and therefore the fore-ordained sanctions are attached to

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 97

those actions and thoughts which are free in the popular
sense, that is, which are determined by a state of mind in
volving the love of God or its contrary.

Chasdai holds fast, it must be remembered, to the idea of
designed order in the universe, though final causes in the
ordinary sense are as it were swallowed up in the absolute,
self-sufficient necessity by which God's love manifests itself.
He likewise holds fast to the necessity of revelation, and goes
so far as to say that the fundamental doctrine of the unity of
God could not be otherwise known. Thus he cannot be
regarded as a forerunner of Spinoza's system. Spinoza took
the suggestions in detail and worked them into a systematic
connexion of his own which would probably have found little
favour in Chasdai's eyes.

Chasdai Creskas deserves to be remembered, apart from
his probable influence on Spinoza, as one of the first who
ventured to attack the prevalent Aristotelian dogmatism. His
motives appear to have been purely theological ; the artificial
constructions forced on Scripture by the school of Ben Maimon
and Ben Gerson were repugnant both to his reason and to his
faith. When theologians fall out philosophy sometimes comes
by her own. For Spinoza's knowledge of Chasdai's work we
have the direct evidence of one express quotation l (Ep. 29,
ad fin,).

A word must also be said of the mystical literature which
exercised an even greater influence on modern Judaism than
the Aristotelian philosophy, and whose later development was
due, according to one high authority,2 to a reaction against
the rationalism of the philosophic writers. The possible
influence of the Kabbalah on Spinoza has been discussed

' Verum hie obiter adhuc notari velim, quod Peripatetici recentiores, ut quidem
puto, male intellexerunt demonstrationem veterum, qua ostendere nitebantur Dei
existentiam. Nam ut ipsam apud Judaeum quendam, Rab Ghasdai vocatum,
reperio, sic sonat.' .... The passage is identified by Dr. Joel (Don Chasdai
Creskas' Religionsphilosophische Lehren, etc., p. 9).
2 Dr. Gratz, in Gesch. der Juden, vol. vii.

98 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

from time to time ever since Spinoza's writings have been an
object of notice to the learned world. One of his earliest
critics, J. E. Wachter, endeavoured to trace his principal
doctrines to that quarter : l and others in later times, without
going so far as to ascribe to the Kabbalists the chief share in
Spinoza's philosophical genealogy, have claimed for them a
more or less considerable one. In order to put this question
on a rational footing it is very necessary to distinguish between
the Kabbalah properly so called, which dates from the
thirteenth century, and the older mystical traditions which
the Kabbalists deliberately confounded with their own fan
tastic speculations in order to give themselves an apparent
sanction of antiquity. The later Kabbalah, starting from
an idealist theology and cosmology expressed in highly
symbolic language, rapidly became overwhelmed by its own
anthropomorphic symbolism, and overran all Jewry with
demonology, thaumaturgy, and other wild fancies beyond
measure ; for all which the professors of this so-called philo
sophy found warrant in Scripture by trifling and wearisome
schemes of non- natural interpretation, anagrammatic readings,
arbitrary transpositions and substitutions of letters, allegorical
and other occult meanings, virtues of numbers, and the like.
The greatest play was made with the numerical values of
words and letters, a method which has to some extent found
its way into Christian theology also. The metaphysical
foundations of the system appear to have been derived by
some road not fully known from Neo-Platonism, and it is said
by the best authorities that the very terms bear marks of
imitation from the Greek. The doctrine of emanations and
intermediate powers between God and the world was laid
hold of in order to have a philosophic standing-ground against
Maimonides and the rationalists, and at the same time to
preserve tradition and ritualism in their literal significance.

1 Der Spinozismus im Judenthumb, 1699. Ehiddarius Cabbalisticus, 1706.
See Van der Linde, Bibliogr, No. 274.

SOURCES OF SPINOZAS PHILOSOPHY. 99

In Spinoza's generation this system had attained its fullest
and most extravagant development : and it seems to have
become by that time the most unmitigated nonsense ever put
together by the perverted ingenuity of man, except perhaps
the English law of real property. In its application to cere
monial observances it was little else than a mass of ludicrous
or disgusting puerilities. Its fruits were seen in the outbreaks
of delusion and imposture culminating in the exploits of the
false Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, of which mention has already
been made in a former chapter. Such a doctrine, we may
be sure, had little attraction for Spinoza ; and in an age when
historical criticism did not exist he would scarcely have had
the patience to search the rubbish-heap for the jewels that
might be buried in it. He has indeed left us in no doubt as
to his opinion of the Kabbalists of his time. For he says in
the ninth chapter of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus : ' ' I
have read and moreover known some Kabbalistic triflers, at
whose follies I was astonished beyond description.'

It is hardly worth while to insist on the differences between
Spinoza and the Kabbalah. The doctrines of emanation and
the transmigration of souls are both fundamental in the
Kabbalistic account of the world, and are both utterly in
compatible with Spinoza's metaphysic.

But on the other hand Spinoza twice refers, in passages oF^)
marked importance and in a tone of respect, though in vague /
terms, to ancient Hebrew opinions and traditions ; and these V
references may with some plausibility be assigned to the earlier /
mysticism which undoubtedly preceded the modern Kabbalah^
and was afterwards confused with it. Only an accomplished
Orientalist can be entitled to a positive opinion on the sources
and antiquity of these speculations. But all mysticism is
Eastern in its ultimate origin, and the choice would seem to
be substantially between holding that the Jewish mysticism was
indirectly derived from the East through Neo-Platonism and the
Alexandrian schools, or that it came, as we know that modern

H 2

ioo SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Jewish theology came, earlier and more directly from the old
rf Persian religion, in which case Jewish and Alexandrian
mysticism would be related to one another, not in a direct
line of descent, but as parallel and partly intermixed streams
from the same fountain-head. The question is hardly a pro
per one to be pursued here, even if I were qualified for the
undertaking. But it is easy to see that, apart from the evi
dence of actual coincidences, which in a case of this kind is
difficult to fix at its true value, the last mentioned opinion has
a strong antecedent probability in its favour : and even a
stranger to Oriental literature may be permitted to appreciate
the weight of M. Franck's arguments for it.

The allusions in Spinoza are the following.

In the Scholium to the seventh Proposition of the Second
Part of the Ethics he says : ' A mode of extension [i.e. a finite
material thing] and the idea of that mode are one and the
same thing, but expressed in two ways ; which certain of the
Hebrews seem to have seen as through a cloud, when they
say that God, the understanding of God, and the things
understood by him are one and the same.' Now this is dis
tinctly said in the commentary of Moses of Cordova on the
Kabbalistic book Zohar. ' It is to be known that the know
ledge of the Creator is not as that of his creatures. For in
these knowledge is distinct from the subject of knowledge, and
is directed upon objects which in their turn are distinguished
from the subject. This is denoted by these three terms :
thought, that which thinks, and that which is thought of. But
the Creator, on the contrary, is himself at once knowledge
and that which knows and that which is known. His manner
of knowledge consists not in applying his thought to things
outside him; in the knowledge of himself he knows and
perceives all that exists. Nothing exists which is not united
to him or which he finds not in his own substance. ' l The

1 Franck, La Kabbale, pp. 27, 194 ; Sigwart, Spinoza's Neuentdeckter
Tractat, &c., p. ioo. The book Zohar itself, the great armoury of the Kabbalists,

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 101

coincidence is striking, and it is quite possible that Spinoza
had read Moses of Cordova. But then it is quite certain
that Spinoza had read and digested the Kabbalist's far greater
namesake Moses ben Maimon. And the same thought is
even more fully and distinctly expressed in a chapter of Mai-
monides' masterpiece, to which Spinoza makes on another
point an unmistakable reference elsewhere.1 The chapter
opens thus : * Thou knowest the famous proposition laid down
by philosophers concerning God, to wit that he is intellect,
the intelligent, and the intelligible, and that these three things
in God make but one and the same thing, wherein is no mul
tiplicity.' And again at the end of the chapter : ' Hence (from
God being intellect always in actu, never in potentia like the
knowledge of finite minds) it follows that he is constantly and
perpetually intelligent, intellect, and intelligible ; it is his very
essence that is intelligent, it is the same that is the intelligible,
and still the same that is intellect, as must be the case with
all intellect in act.' Maimonides himself is here following
Ibn-Sina, and the idea is ultimately derived from Aristotle.
Thus we have a warning of some significance against jumping
at simple coincidences in matters of this kind. It is practi
cally certain that Spinoza had in his mind the passage of
Maimonides ; he may or may not have also had before him
the adaptation of it by Moses of Cordova to a purpose
superficially like Spinoza's own.

The other passage to be considered is in a letter to Olden
burg (Ep. 21).

4 1 hold God for the immanent cause, as they say, of all
things, not the transient. That all things have their being
and move in God, I affirm with Paul, and perhaps I may say
with all the ancient philosophers, though in another form ; I

is finally ascertained by recent criticism to be a forgery of the thirteenth century.
Gratz, op. tit. vol. vii. note 12.

1 More Nebuchim, part i. c. 68 (vol. i. p. 301 in Munk's translation, and see
j his note) ; Spinoza, Cogitate, Metaphysica^ pt. ii. c. 6, § 3.

102

SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

might even make bold to say, with all the ancient Hebrews,
so far as one may guess from certain traditions, though they
be in many ways corrupted.' The traditions here mentioned
might well belong to the metaphysical kernel of the Kabbalah,
which Spinoza must, in common with all scholars of the time,
have believed to be of great antiquity ; and the manifold cor
ruptions of which he speaks would also fit very well with the
vagaries of the later Kabbalists, and the opinion expressed of
them in the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.' But such a re
ference is too vague to be much relied upon by itself ; and we
have seen that the passage in Eth. ii. 7 gives it very little
support.

It is further to be observed that the Kabbalah was taken
up with great ardour by Raymond Lull within the century
of its birth, and thus obtained a partial currency in Christen
dom ; and that it was eagerly studied by Pico de Mirandola,
Reuchlin, and other scholars of the Renaissance, who, enter
taining no doubt of the antiquity alleged for it, thought to find
in it a venerable and authoritative confirmation of the Platonic
or Neo-Platonic philosophy that prevailed among them.

Giordano Bruno, whose relation to Spinoza will im
mediately be considered, was probably not free from this in
fluence. At all events the work of the Jewish Neo-Platonist
Avicebron (Ibn-Gebirol) was known to him and freely used by
him ; and thus we have yet another road by which the Neo-
Platonic ideas may have found their way to Spinoza. Solomon
Ibn-Gebirol, born at Cordova or Malaga about 1020, came at
an unfortunate time for his philosophical reputation among
his own people. His speculative writings, in which he closely
followed Plotinus, were overwhelmed in the Peripatetic flood
that was already rising before his death, and while he lived
and still lives as a religious poet,1 he was entirely forgotten as

1 ' Den Gabirol, diesen treuen
Gottgeweihten Minnesanger,
Diese fromme Nachtigall,
Deren Rose Gott gewesen.'— HEINE, Hcbrdische Mekdien.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 103

a philosophical writer. But his principal work had been
translated into Latin under the name of * Fons Vitae,' and
was current among the schoolmen. The author's name was
disguised under the Latinized form Avicebron, and he was set
down without further inquiry, by a sort of unreasoned mental
attraction, as belonging to the Arabic school headed by
Averroes and Avicenna. The identity of Avicebron with Ibn-
Gebirol was rediscovered only in our own day by the saga
cious industry of the late Dr. Munk. The ' Fons Vitae,' well
known to the leaders of mediaeval philosophy, fell into the
hands of Giordano Bruno, who as a Platonist of the Renais
sance naturally received it in a much more kindred spirit than
the Aristotelians. Bruno repeatedly cites Avicebron with ap
proval, and there is much likeness in tne general strain of
their speculations, which however may be due to the use of
common sources.

We have no direct evidence that Spinoza was acquainted
with Giordano Bruno's writings ; but the want of such evi
dence counts for very little. But for his reply in a letter to a
friend's passing question, we should be in the same case as to
Spinoza's knowledge of Hobbes ; yet his political theory is
so evidently founded on that of Hobbes that the letter adds
nothing to our certainty. At that time it was still the con
stant practice for writers to make in silence such use of their
predecessors' work as in our day would be thought to demand
the most ample acknowledgment. And in this particular
case there was a special reason for silence, the same reason
which probably accounts for Tschirnhausen's later omission of
all reference to Spinoza himself. Any avowed following of
Bruno would have been sure to excite the most violent pre
judice even among Protestant readers. It was by no means at
Catholic orthodoxy alone that Giordano Bruno had struck in
his daring and unconfined speculations. We are free, then, to
take at its full worth the internal evidence for Spinoza's know
ledge of Bruno ; and it is of such strength as to carry all but

io4 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

irresistible conviction. Whether Spinoza had actually read
Bruno's dialogues, or had become acquainted with their
substance in some other way (for example, through Van den
Ende), it is impossible with our present materials to decide.

One is tempted to linger on the singular career and tragic
fate of the man whose fame, crushed for awhile but not con
sumed, has revived in our own day for the eternal dishonour
of his persecutors. They who curse liberty and the advance
ment of man's estate in our own day are true and worthy
successors of those who burnt Giordano Bruno and were
ready to torture Galileo. The philosopher and martyr of
whom we now speak is at last fitly celebrated in the verse of one
of our own poets, himself full of the spirit of the Renaissance,
its ideal ardour for freedom, its impatience of authority in all
forms, its height of speculative ambition, and its passionate
love of beauty. But my task forbids me to enter on digressions,
and I must proceed to notice the points of Bruno's philosophy
which bear on the matter in hand.

Bruno admits only one first principle, cause, or sub
stance, in the universe. He is never tired of dwelling on the
unity of all things, which he regards as a multiform unity
embracing the whole and present in every part. He rejects
the notion of formless matter, and maintains that jTia|j£r_-aad.
form are inseparable. Finite things differ from one another
not in their being, but only in their mode of being, so that in
|them the one substance is not diverse, but only diversely
([fashioned and figured ; all things are in the universe, and the
universe in all things. The study of nature seems to disclose
two substances of mind and body, but further contemplation
reduces them to one ; and the ultimate object of all philoso
phy and science is declared (with an ironical reservation as to
supernatural knowledge) to be the perception of this unity.
In one dialogue the speaker who represents Bruno's own
opinions asserts that the 'first principle' is infinite in all its
attributes, and that one of those attributes is extension (uno

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 105

amplissimo dimensionale infinite). Again, it is animated, in
asmuch as it includes all life as part of one and the same
being : all particular lives are effects of the divine life present
in all things, * Natura est deus in rebus.' We find in Bruno
the terms attribute and mode, used in a manner which, though
it has not anything like Spinoza's precision, may very well
have suggested Spinoza's adoption of the words. The con
stant polemic against Aristotle is likewise worth noting ; if
Spinoza was a reader of Bruno, his almost contemptuous view
of Aristotle (p. 63 above) might be partly accounted for by
this.

In some of Bruno's writings much prominence is given to
the identification of the highest kind of speculative knowledge
with the love of God, or the one perfect object ; and the power
and surpassing excellence of this ideal and intellectual love
are dwelt upon with exuberant poetic fancy. Notwithstand
ing the wide difference between Bruno's manner and Spinoza's,
the thought and even the expressions are often strikingly
like those of the ' Essay on God and Man.' At the same time
this topic is so much the common property of all mystic and
mystically inclined writers that I can hardly think these re
semblances add very much to the evidence of a specific con
nexion between the two thinkers. It would be no great
matter for surprise if an equally good parallel could be pro
duced from the Persian Sufis, whom Spinoza certainly had
not studied. Still, when the general probability of Spinoza's
relation to Bruno is once established, all points of coincidence
have a certain cumulative value, though each may in itself be
capable of a different explanation.

It has been suggested that Descartes also may have been
indebted to Giordano Bruno, and there is nothing unlikely in
it. Leaving this question aside as too remote, we must now
turn to Descartes as the master who gave the most powerful
and immediate impulse to Spinoza's thought in another
direction. By him were nourished the exact method, the \

io6 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

/ close analysis, the spirit of scientific curiosity, which we find
in Spinoza's earliest writing side by side with the ardour of
I universal contemplation, and in the ' Ethics ' interpenetrating
V and transforming it.

Part II.— Descartes.

The real merit of Descartes is not to be found in the
particular novelties which he started in either natural or
universal philosophy. His fundamental axiom in psychology,
though first brought into full prominence by him, was not
altogether new. His physical principles were unsatisfactory
not only in themselves, but as compared with the results
already arrived at by other workers to whom Descartes failed
to do justice. They were indeed absolutely erroneous in
many respects, as we shall presently have occasion to see.
The amount of direct edification which a modern reader can
get out of Descartes' ' Principia Philosophiae ' is in truth ex
ceedingly small. It is only in pure mathematics, where, as
the undoubted creator of analytical geometry, he can claim
his part in all its later achievements and extensions, that his
contributions to man's positive knowledge have retained a
permanent value. Yet the name of Descartes, notwithstand
ing all the shortcomings of his actual performance, marks an
epoch in the history of science and philosophy. His fame
is great and justly won because he made a serious attempt to
give an account of the world on a scientific plan, to apply the
same method to the problems of outward and inward ex
perience, and to combine the results into a consistent whole.
He saw, with clearness and boldness then without parallel,
that physiology was a branch of physical knowledge, and to
be investigated on just the same principles as every other
branch. He saw that philosophy must leave science alone
with the things which pertain to science ; that the business of
philosophy is not with the particulars which fall within the

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 107

province of scientific inquiry, but with the interpretation of
the facts of experience which for science are ultimate. We
have no right to be offended or even surprised when his
execution falls short of his intentions. He knew that he
ought not to be imposed upon by words or dogmatic fictions,
but it was only natural that he should in many cases be un
consciously led away by them. There is another disturbing
influence, unfortunately, which has to be allowed for in con
sidering Descartes' work as a whole ; I mean his attitude of
extreme caution towards the Church. It is certain that he
was much hampered by the danger of an open conflict with
orthodoxy, which he was determined to avoid at almost any
cost. As it was, all his astuteness was too little to save him
self or his immediate followers from ecclesiastical hostility
which was even more bitter in the Protestant Netherlands
than in any part of the Catholic world, and which, though it
never rose to the importance of a persecution, was able in
various ways to inflict considerable inconvenience. It would
be neither generous nor wise to ascribe Descartes' hesitation
and reticence in the face of these difficulties to mere personal
timidity. He had a sincere aversion to controversies of this
kind and a sincere dread of violent changes. He would have
liked the Church to adopt modern science and philosophy ;
failing that, he was content that they should be left unmo
lested, and thought it no harm to secure immunity, if
necessary, by silence on some points and transparent
dissimulation on others. Certain apologetic passages in
Descartes' physical writings are as manifestly ironical as
anything in Hume. Open defiance must have appeared to
him an impracticable policy, and disastrous, if it had been
practicable, both for society and for science itself. These
questions, however, do not touch the physical side of Des
cartes' teaching, as to which there is no suspicion of reserve.
And it was on this side, as I conceive, that Spinoza first
approached him and felt his power. In Spinoza's earliest

io8 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

essay the psychology shows a reader of Descartes, but a reader
very far from being a disciple ; the physics, on the other hand,
are simply and solely Cartesian.

Yet, while the influence of Descartes' philosophical con
ceptions on Spinoza has over and over again been discussed,,
sometimes with exaggeration, sometimes with depreciation,
the not less important and certainly more persistent influence
of his physical conceptions has passed, so far as I am aware,
almost without notice.1 The very peculiar account of motion
given by Descartes was not only repeated by Spinoza, as in
duty bound, in his ' Principles of Cartesian Philosophy,' but
occurs in the ' Essay on God and Man/ and has left its traces
in the ' Ethics.' I venture to say that without going back to
the Cartesian theory of dynamic Spinoza's account of the
material world is not intelligible.

We read in Spinoza of ' certain things immediately pro
duced by God,' which, though individual things, are infinite
in their kind, and necessary in an eminent manner, as being
coextensive with the attribute or aspect of existence to which
they belong. What these things are is not stated in the
Ethics ; the explanation must be sought partly in one of the
later letters, partly in the early essay which has already
come before us.2 In this last the following explanation is
given.

1 As concerning Natitra naturata in general, that is, the
modes or creatures which immediately depend on God or are
created by him, of such we know two and no more ; namely,
motions in matter, and understanding in the thinking thing.
Of these we say that they have been from all eternity, and to
all eternity shall remain unchangeable, a work verily as great
as beseemed the greatness of the master-worker.'

1 Professor Sigwart, however, has indicated the point here discussed and its
significance. Spinoza's Neucntdeckter Tractat, &c. Gotha, 1866, p. 49.

2 Eth. i, propp. 21, 23, and 28, schol. ; Ep. 66, § 8 ; Kovte Verhandeling,
part i. cap. 9, to which there is an odd note, presumably by a transcriber, stating
that the author really thought motion itself to be capable of further explanation.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 109

The subject of motion is not pursued, as more properly
belonging to a treatise on natural science. Motion and
understanding, the eternal and immutable creatures, are called
by a startling Hebraism Sons of God. Indications of this
kind have their value as showing that Spinoza was really
striving to find a scientific interpretation for mystical con
ceptions. Not less significant is the dispppearance of such
language from the Ethics. We find it stated, again, that
extended bodies differ from one another only in 'proportion
of rest and motion ; ' and, what is still more extraordinary,
we hear of a body being set in motion by the impact of an
other body having motion greater than its rest.1 In the ' Trac-
tatus Theologico-Politicus ' (c. vii. § 27) we read of ' res max-
ime universales et toti naturae communes, videlicet motum et
quietem, eorumque leges et regulas,' which, though it might
excite little attention by itself, is significant in connexion with
other passages. And in a letter as late as 1675 he gives
Motion and Rest as examples of the 'things immediately
produced by God.' Motion and Rest, then, were for Spinoza
not relative terms describing the state of bodies with regard
to each other, but in some sense and for some purposes real
things. Indeed he all but defined Matter as Extension
modified by Rest and Motion.

For the key to these ideas we must look to the second
part of Descartes' ' Principia Philosophiae,' closely followed by
Spinoza himself in the professed exposition cf Cartesian doc
trine which was his first published work. Descartes tells us
that the nature of matter, or body generally considered, does
not consist in hardness, weight, or any other sensible quality,
but only in extension in three dimensions ; and that all matter
is ultimately homogeneous (' in toto universo una et eadem
existit '), and all the differences in its sensible properties de
pend on differences of motion (' omnis materiae variatio, sive

1 Korte Verh., part ii. note ad init. (I have no doubt that this note is Spinoza's
own), and cap. 19 (pp. 49, 99 in Schaarschmidt's ed.). Cf. Ethics, 4, 39.

no SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

omnium eius formarum diversitas, pendet a motu '). The re
lative nature of motion is clearly enough pointed out ('nullum
esse permanentem ullius rei locum, nisi quatenus a cogitatione
nostra determinatur '), and the same illustration of it is given
which has (no doubt independently) been repeated by Mr.
Herbert Spencer ('First Principles,' c. 3, § 17).

Thus far the modern reader may follow Descartes with
admiration ; but then it is laid down that the quantity of
motion in the universe is constant, a proposition which is de
monstrated a priori from the perfection of God. We are to
presume that God observes the utmost constancy in all his
operations, and we must not suppose any changes in his works
which are not actually known by experience or revelation.
Hence we are to believe that in the beginning he created a
certain quantity of motion and rest, and preserves them un
changed : ' materiam simul cum motu et quiete in principio
creavit, iamque per solum suum concursum ordinarium tan-
tundem motus et quietis in ea tota, quantum tune posuit, con-
servat.' The addition of rest, as if that also were a real thing,
is shown by the context to be merely rhetorical. Spinoza
may have been misled by it, or his own language may be
nothing but an excessive imitation of Descartes. It would
seem, indeed, that Descartes himself was not free from con
fusion on this point ; for some paragraphs later he speaks of
motion as contrary to rest, and of speed as contrary to slow
ness, ' in so far as such slowness partakes of the nature of
rest.' Spinoza, again, speaks elsewhere of finite existence as
' de nihilo participans,' partaking of nullity (' Cogit. Met.' pt. ii.
c- 3> § J) ; but he certainly did not regard Nothing as a real
thing. Here, then, we have the conservation of motion laid
down by Descartes as a first principle of physics, and
taken over by Spinoza without question. The first remark
that occurs on it is that, however we take the supposed prin
ciple, it is not true ; and it is almost impossible to believe
that the supposed proof of it was satisfying to the inventor

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY, m

himself. Yet Descartes had a perfectly distinct and right
intention, and one may even say that he came near to a de
finite truth. But unhappily he had not the patience to abstain
from premature generalization ; he violated all the rules of
sound scientific method, including his own maxims, and his
haste led him into deep and irreparable error. He was added
to the number of those mighty ones who in their search for
the truth of things have, as Lucretius says, mightily fallen :
' graviter magno magni cecidere ibi casu.'

By quantity of motion Descartes meant what is now called
momentum, a quantity measured by mass and velocity jointly.
The term ' quantity of motion ' has indeed been preserved as
a synonym for momentum in several modern books. Now
velocity, and therefore momentum, is a quantity having
direction as well as magnitude. It seems unaccountable that
Descartes should have neglected to consider this, but he did
neglect it. He took a sum of directed quantities all over the
universe, in all directions indiscriminately, and asserted that
it was constant : his proposition would symbolically be ex
pressed thus — 2 (mv) = C. This is not only untrue but
unintelligible. For, motion and velocity being relative (as
Descartes himself, strange to say, well knew), we are not told
how the velocity is to be estimated. Descartes took no ac
count whatever of direction, holding the nature of motion in
itself to be something apart from its direction, which he calls
j ' the determination of motion towards this or that part ; ' and
' this is further made clear by the application of his principle
! which immediately follows. He considers various cases of the
i collision of two bodies on the assumption that the total quan-
; tity of motion must remain the same after the collision as
i before ; and he treats the quantity as still being the same
•• when the direction is reversed. The most curious confusion
• of all is that, after duly warning us that the two bodies in
question must be regarded as an independent system (' a
I reliquis omnibus sic divisa ut eorum motus a nullis aliis cir-

H2 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

cumiacentibus impedirentur nee iuvarentur '), he proceeds to
speak of cases in which one of them is absolutely at rest,
and other cases in which they are moving with different velo
cities. The results he obtains are in part wholly wrong, in
part such as might be theoretically true in a limiting and
physically impossible case. Spinoza was apparently satisfied
with all Descartes' rules except one. (Ep. 15,1 10).

Had Descartes attended to the truth that direction is in
separable from momentum, he might have lighted upon the
perfectly true proposition that momentum in a given direction
is conserved. This is a corollary from Newton's Third Law
of Motion, that action and reaction are equal and opposite.
For, if any change took place in the momentum of a system
resolved along any particular direction whatever, such change
would be due to an inequality between action and reaction
measured in that direction, which is what the third law of
motion excludes.1 But Newton's third law was unknown to
Descartes ; and in truth its scope and importance have only
in late years been redeemed from general neglect. Descartes,
however, had a grand object in his speculations on the first
principles of physics. He could not be expected to know
that it was unattainable with the means at his command, and
the importance of the conception may almost excuse his
rashness in clutching at it and seizing a phantom. He was
in search of a principle which should enable him to deal with
the material universe as a machine self-acting and complete
in itself. Given a certain disposition of matter and motion,
the whole future series of phenomena was to be involved in
it, and was to follow without any necessity for a renewal of
interference from outside. Theological criticism was met, if
not disarmed, by postulating an original creative act to endow
the matter of the universe with its fixed ' quantity of motion.'
Descartes was in truth feeling about, without sufficient light,

1 The proposition was also correctly enounced by Leibnitz : Opera Fhilo-
s?phica (ed. Erdmann, Berlin, 1840), pp. 108, 133.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 113

for some such general doctrine as that which is now known as
the Conservation of Energy ; and if it had been in the nature
of things that the Conservation of Energy, or anything equi
valent to it, should be either discovered or proved a priori,
Descartes would in all probability have done it. His con
temporaries were too much dazzled by the brilliance of his
system to perceive its scientific weakness. Spinoza, full of
the Hebrew conviction of the perfect unity of the divine
nature and of its manifestations in the sensible world, and
determined to carry that principle to its utmost consequences,
found in Descartes a seeming demonstration, on grounds of
scientific evidence, of that unity and uniformity in the phy
sical world which speculation had already led him to expect,
and it must have come upon him almost as a revelation.

It is curious that Spinoza's language about Motion and
Rest, derived as we have seen from the most confused and
erroneous part of the Cartesian physics, is nevertheless in a
manner capable of a rational interpretation. He is asked to
name the particular things which are infinite in their kind, and
necessary to the existence of finite things of the same kind.
Matter he does not count as such (at least not in the first
rank), though in his view the material universe may be
considered as an individual whole no less than any part of it.
Probably he regarded matter as nothing but figured exten
sion ; and the visible universe, * facies totius universi,' in
volves change and motion. He names accordingly * motus et
quies,' as being, in the attribute of extension, the examples
desired. Now if for motus we might read energy of motion,
and for quies energy of position, we should have a fairly
plausible result. Energy is, according to the notions of
modern physics, the most fundamental property of the sen
sible universe, coextensive with it, and necessary to every
thing that happens in it. Every physical event may be
regarded as a transference of energy. Again, though kinetic
energy and potential energy, taken separately, are not con-

ii4 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

stant, the sum of them is constant ; so that, if anything in
the physical world is to be called infinite and immutable,
Energy, taken as this sum, appears to have a good enough
claim to the title. And thus (if we chose to disregard
historical facts and conditions) we might find in Spinoza's
dark saying a kind of prophetic vision, and assign to him
the glory of having pointed the way to the latest generaliza
tion of science. But this fancy would of course be wholly
untenable ; first, because it was no more possible for Spinoza
than for Descartes to arrive at the modern conception of the
Conservation of Energy ; secondly, because we have fixed
Spinoza's phrase to its only admissible meaning by tracing it
to its Cartesian origin. Why then, it may be asked, do I go
out of the way to suggest the possibility of such a fancy ? I
reply that the example is not uninstructive as showing what
caution must be used in assigning a meaning to obscure
language in the philosophy of past generations, and how
important it is, where practicable, to ascertain the history of
the ideas and terms we have to do with.

At the same time we have indications that towards the
end of his life Spinoza had become deeply dissatisfied with
the physical conceptions of Descartes. This appears by his
last letters to Tschirnhausen (in the year 1676). Tschirn-
hausen asks (Ep. 69) how Spinoza would prove a priori the
existence of bodies figured and in motion, extension in the
abstract being conceivable without any such thing. Spinoza
makes answer thus : ' From extension as conceived by
Descartes, that is, an inert mass (molem quiescentem), it is not
only, as you say, difficult, but altogether impossible to prove the
existence of bodies. For matter at rest will, so far as in it lies,
persist in its rest, and will not be impelled to motion unless
by a more powerful external cause, and for this reason I long
ago did not hesitate to affirm that the Cartesian principles of
natural philosophy are useless, not to say absurd/ Tschirn
hausen replied that Descartes did not, in his opinion, profess to

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. 115

account for the existing material universe as a product of inert
matter, since he supposes matter to have been animated with
motion by a creative act. Spinoza was unable, probably by
reason of increasing ill health, to keep up the discussion at any
length. His rejoinder is in these terms : ' As to your question
whether the variety of existing things can be proved a priori
from the mere conception of extension, I think I have already
sufficiently shown that it is impossible ; and that therefore
matter is ill defined by Descartes as identical with extension
(materiam a Cartesio male definiri per extensionem), but must
necessarily be explained by an attribute which expresses an
eternal and infinite nature. But perhaps I will discourse of
this more clearly with you some day, if life suffices me. For
hitherto I have not been able to set down anything orderly on
the matter.' The opportunity for fuller explanation never came,
and the passage as it stands is, like others in the same
correspondence, somewhat obscure. One would expect the
meaning to be that matter without motion is as inconceivable
as matter without extension, so that Descartes' assumption
that matter was there first, as an inert lump, and motion was
put into it afterwards, is illegitimate and irrational. But if
Spinoza meant this, I cannot see why he should not have said
it with his usual distinctness.

At any rate it is pretty clear that the Cartesian conception
of material substance as consisting merely in extension — the
confusion of matter with space, as Professor Clerk Maxwell
has called it *— which leaves the fact and the idea of mass in
explicable, and leads to motion being inconsistently regarded,
'now as an ens rationis like the configuration of a system or
part of space, now as a kind of thing-in -itself, was not
accepted by Spinoza in his later days. This alone would not
show that he did not accept it when he wrote the ' Ethics/

1 Clerk Maxwell was living when these lines were written : I cannot let them
pass through the press without adding a word of tribute to a man of profound and
original genius, too early lost to England and to science.

u6 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

but it is enough to make us wary in reading those propo
sitions which involve physical ideas.

Another physical proposition given by Descartes, and
included in Newton's first law of motion, appears to have
furnished the groundwork of the more general proposition
used by Spinoza as the starting point of human psychology
and ethics. Descartes says (' Princ. Phil.' 2, c. 37) that ' every
thing, in so far as it is simple and undivided, remains, as much
as in it lies, in the same condition, and suffers no change
unless from external causes.' Spinoza, in his manual of
Cartesian philosophy, repeats the proposition in almost the
same words. ' Unaquaeque res, quatenus simplex et indivisa
est, et in se sola consideratur, quantum in se est, semper in
eodem statu perseverat.' The demonstration he gives is
framed in such general terms as to show that he regarded the
proposition as not merely physical ; Descartes having already
treated it as the most general law of physical action (' Princ.
Phil/ 2, c. 43). And in the ' Cogitata Metaphysica,' published
as an appendix to this work, we find the general idea of the
self-preserving effort of things, ' conatus quo res in statu suo
perseverare conantur.' This effort, Spinoza says, is in truth
nothing else than the thing itself ; or, as we should now say,
the fact of the thing being there. And he gives the first law
of motion as a simple example. * Motion has the power of
persisting in its actual condition. Now this power is nothing
else than the motion itself, that is, the fact that such is the
nature of motion' l (' Cogit. Met.' pt. i. c. 6, § 9). In the ' Essay
on God and Man' is a curious chapter (pt. i. c .5) in which Provi
dence is explained as identical with the self-preserving effort.
Let us now turn to the sixth and seventh propositions in
the third book of the ' Ethics.' * Unaquaeque res, quantum
in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur : ' every particular
thing, so much as in it lies, endeavours to persist in its own

1 Or perhaps, ' of the particular motion : ' but if that had been the meaning
Spinoza would probably have written istius motus.

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY. n7

being. * Conatus, quo unaquaeque res in suo esse perseverare
conatur, nihil est praeter ipsius rei actualem essentiam : ' the
endeavour wherewith everything strives to persist in its being
is nothing else than the fact of the thing being what it is.
The physical aspect of the proposition may be stated in
modern language by saying that no change of configuration
takes place without work being done ; this gets rid of the
objectionable term conatus, and dispenses with the auxiliary
proposition which Spinoza required to guard against the
illusions it might lead to. Both the conception and the
name of the self-preserving endeavour are older, possibly
much older, than Descartes ; l but the connexion between
Spinoza's proposition and Descartes' so-called first law of
nature appears to be sufficiently made out by comparison of
the passages above given.2

Here again we are led to remark the importance of histor
ical criticism. It would be easy, notwithstanding Spinoza's
own warning, to find in the conatus an inkling of the struggle
for existence, as we now call it, which is so important in the
modern scientific account of the world. It has even been
suggested that Spinoza here anticipates the doctrine of evo
lution. But the facts are inexorable. There is no more of
evolution in Spinoza than in Descartes ; there is in one sense
the general idea of evolution in both, namely, that the whole
physical universe, animate as well as inanimate, is to be ac-

1 Giordano Bruno speaks of a ' desio di conservarsi ' as common to all
creatures. In Dante, De Monarchia, I, § 15, we find it assumed as a principle that
1 omne quod est appetit suum esse.' A similar maxim was familiar to the Stoics.
' They say that the first impulse of every living thing is directed to self-preservation
( eTrl rb TTjpetV latmf ), . . . and the proposition is thus stated by Chrysippus in
his first book on Ends, that the first property of every living creature is the con
scious maintenance of itself ' (T^V avrov (rva-raffiv ital T^V TOUTTJS ffweiStja-iv). Diog.
L. vii. 85 (ap. Ritter and Preller, § 420). I have not been able to trace the idea
much farther back. So far as I can learn (though I speak with diffidence) it is
not in Aristotle ; but it is discoverable in the later Peripatetics. See the frag
ment on the Stoics in Grote's Aristotle.

2 It is briefly noticed by Trendelenburg, Historische Beitrdge zur Philosophic,
ii. 82.

n8 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

counted for by physical causes. What the doctrine of evolu
tion has done is to put this idea into forms whereby it becomes
capable of definite scientific treatment, and leads to definite
results. The point is not to see that there is in nature a con
stant endeavour, or even competition, of individuals and kinds
to preserve their existence, but to see that the competition is
itself an orderly process, and that existing forms are worked
out by it in ways which may be investigated and reduced to
law. This belongs to natural, not to speculative philosophy ;
the most the speculative philosopher can do is to know his
own business and leave the road clear for natural history.
And this is the credit I would claim for Spinoza, not the gift
of prophecy but the gift of discernment. But we shall return
to this hereafter.

Thus much of Descartes' physical doctrines in their rela
tion to Spinoza. As to his philosophy in general, there is no
doubt that Spinoza was profoundly influenced by his doctrine
of method and by his manner of approaching metaphysical
and psychological questions. Indeed it could not have been
otherwise. At the time when Spinoza's mind was opening to
philosophy, and his powers ripening for independent work,
Descartes was still in the first flush of his renown. Every
student who meant to think for himself would turn eagerly to
Descartes as the liberator who had set reason on a new footing.
Spinoza necessarily dwelt in a Cartesian atmosphere and
drew his life from it. But, however much Spinoza must have
admired the height and range of Descartes' genius, and been
fascinated by the brilliance of his invention, he found the
actual performance wanting. Reasons have been given, in
the foregoing notice of the ' Essay on God and Man,' for believ
ing that Spinoza was never a Cartesian in metaphysics ; it is
certain that in psychology he came, though more gradually,
to a marked divergence from Cartesian opinions ; and we have
just seen that even in physics, where until the advent of New
ton Descartes seemed to reign without a rival, Spinoza did

SOURCES OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY, 119

not give him unreserved allegiance. When he wrote his early
essay, Spinoza had already made up his mind to reject the
metaphysical dualism of Descartes ; the conception of spirit
and matter as two distinct substances is entirely put aside.
On the other hand he still so far adhered to Cartesian psy
chology as to hold that interaction took place between the
mind and the body by means of the ' animal spirits,' the
direction of whose motion, though not the motion itself, could
be changed by a purely mental act. This was the philoso
phical use of the fallacious distinction made by Descartes
between motion and its direction or * determination towards
this or that part.' It enabled him to assign, as he thought, a
point of contact for the material and the immaterial worlds,
and not only to leave room for the operation of free will but
to give a scientific explanation of it. The will could impress
as much change as might be required on the direction of the
animal spirits without violating the axiom of the conservation
of motion.1 Spinoza, as his own work advanced, perceived the
weakness of the Cartesian theory, and not only ceased to fol
low it but explicitly controverted it in the * Ethics.'

Spinoza's doctrine of the unity of Substance was held by
him, I believe, without interruption from the first days of his
philosophic activity. He was only strengthened in it by ex
amination of the Cartesian dualism ; and, so far as we think
of his opinion on this point in relation to Descartes, we must
think of it as a critical reaction rather than a development.
It is true that philosophy could not in any case have rested
content with the form of dualism propounded by Descartes ;
the school of Descartes himself did not so rest. He had drawn
a sharp line of separation between the subjective and objec
tive aspects of the world, the mental and the material series
of phenomena, without making any distinct attempt to show
how they came into relation and correspondence with one

1 Attempts have been made quite lately to revive this invention in a form
adapted to modern physical knowledge .

120 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

another. The gap was filled up by the ingenuity of his
immediate followers with the doctrine of Occasional Causes ;
which however is really equivalent to giving up the problem
as hopeless, and taking refuge in a perpetual miracle. Yet
no other way is possible so long as the fundamental dis
tinction of substances is retained. Spinoza saw that the ap
parent explanation was no explanation at all, and took up
the question again from the beginning. If it can be said of
him that he only continued the work of Descartes, it can with
equal justice be said of Kant that he only continued the work
of Hume. Both found new difficulties probed and laid bare,
new lines of search indicated by their great precursors ; but
the problems thus started had in the one case been solved
imperfectly or erroneously, in the other they were conspicu
ously and of set purpose left unsolved. Kant and Spinoza,
men of widely different genius and considering the questions
of philosophy under widely different forms, both produced
results which have struck deep root and brought forth a
manifold harvest in the subsequent course of philosophic
inquiry.

Every new step in philosophy is a continuation of the
last, in so far as its character and direction are determined by
that which has been found wanting in the account of things
obtained in the last preceding stage. But it can properly be
called a continuation only when it pushes on in the same
direction, not when it comes back from it as leading nowhere
and strikes out a distinct one. This last was the case with
Spinoza as regards Descartes ; and to speak of his philosophy
as a branch of the philosophy of Descartes appears to me
nothing short of a paradox.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 121

CHAPTER IV.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD.

Et j'avais toujours un extreme desir d'apprendre a distinguer le vrai d'avec le
faux, pourvoir clair en mes actions et marcher avec assurance en cette vie. — DES
CARTES, Discours de la Methode.

THE best general introduction to the philosophy of Spinoza
is perhaps that which he has himself given us in his unfinished
work, ' On the Amendment of the Understanding/ It was
begun some considerable time before the * Ethics,' probably
on the suggestion of Descartes' ' Discourse on Method/ but
on a much larger scale ; it seems to aim at nothing less than
a complete analytical account of the objects, nature, and
instruments of philosophic inquiry. Thus it was to prepare
the way for a constructive exposition which is now represented,
so far as Spinoza was able to carry it out, by the ' Ethics.'
At the time of writing this treatise his designs were probably
more extensive ; and changes, though not fundamental ones,
had come over his opinions in some points before the ' Ethics '
assumed their present form. But on the whole the ' De In-
tellectus Emendatione' stands so much nearer to the 'Ethics'
than to the 4 Essay on God and Man ' that it may be fairly
regarded as the analytical preface to Spinoza's latest work,
bearing to it some such relation as Descartes' ' Discourse ' to
his ' Principles of Philosophy,' or Kant's ' Prolegomena ' to the
' Kritik.' Spinoza himself, if we may trust the statement of his
editors, had not dropped the work as out of harmony with
his later views, but always intended to take it up and finish
it. Several of the foot-notes attached to it in its present

122

SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

shape look as if they had been made by Spinoza on a re-
perusal some time after the text was written, and were meant
as memoranda for his own use in the subsequent revision and
completion which was never executed.

The treatise begins by considering the futility of the
common objects of human desire, which are reduced to the
heads of wealth, power, and pleasures of sense. All these are
vain and precarious in themselves, and distract the mind
from the pursuit of the true good. But is not that pursuit
also precarious ? and if for its sake we renounce that which
men commonly seek after, may we not lose the substance of
life for a shadow ?

The answer gives in a few sentences the whole aim- of
Spinoza's philosophy. ' After I had somewhat thought over
the matter, I found, in the first place, that by abandon
ing these objects and undertaking a new course of life I
should abandon a good uncertain in its own nature, as we
may plainly gather from what I have said, for one uncer
tain, not in its own nature (for it was a constant good I was
in search of) but only as to the attainment of it. Further,
I came by persevering reflexion to see that by so doing, if
only I could thoroughly weigh the question, I should abandon
certain evils for a certain good. For I perceived that I was
encompassed by the utmost danger, and drove myself to seek
a remedy with all my power, uncertain as it might be ; as
one sick of a mortal disease, when he foresees certain death
unless a remedy be applied, is driven to seek that remedy
with all his power, uncertain though it be, and his whole hope
is set thereon. Now all those things which the multitude
pursue not only provide no remedy for the maintenance of
our being, but actually hinder it, and are oftentimes the occa
sion of ruin to such as possess them, always to such as are
possessed by them.' . . . Happiness or unhappiness depends
on the nature of the object whereon we fix our affection.
Strife, envy, hatred, and fear are the constant penalty of

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD.

123

loving perishable things. ' But love towards a thing eternal
and infinite feeds the mind with pure joy, and is wholly free
from sorrow ; this is to be greatly desired and strenuously
sought for.'

Spinoza, like Descartes, tells the story of his own search
for truth, taking us along with him in the path which he
struck out, and retracing with us the steps by which at last
he found himself in the right way. But the difference of their
ambitions is remarkable. Descartes is in search, not of
blessedness, not of the supreme good, but of certainty for the
conduct of man's action. ( I ever had an exceeding desire to
learn how to distinguish truth from falsehood, that I might
see the way clearly in my actions and walk with confidence
in this life.' There was no ardent disquietude in his pursuit
of truth. He found literature instructive and agreeable ;
mathematics admirable and useful ; theology a guide to
heaven (whither he meant to go no less than any other man),
but too lofty for terrestrial uses ; philosophy an art of support
ing many diverse opinions with equally plausible reasons ;
and special branches of learning appeared to him in the
same case with philosophy, save that they were practical roads
to wealth and honourable employments. From the pursuit
of these he could stand apart ; he knew enough of vulgar
imposture and delusion to be proof against them ; and having
found the school of books a failure, he went forth into the
school of men. It was only after some years that in the
leisure of a long winter he turned back upon himself to find
some better foundations of knowledge and belief. Meanwhile
active life was well enough ; every man finds at least some
truth in attending to his own business, for therein error
brings its own speedy punishment. As for the common
objects of men's desires and undertakings, their vanity is
passed over with the briefest mention. What may be the real
object of life is not discussed, not even glanced at. Know
ledge is enough for our present search, Descartes seems to

124 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

say. Let us know where we are, and then there will be time
enough for the rest.

It is otherwise with Spinoza. Following a more ancient
course of thought than that struck out by Descartes, he is
impelled by the futility of earthly desires to set forth on the
quest of man's true and perfect good. It is not enough for
him to satisfy the practical need of ' walking with confidence
in this life ; ' he would fain understand the consummation of
the journey, and the purpose to which all particular know
ledge and actions are subordinate. The life of courts and
camps, the field of varied activity and observation where
Descartes could leave his questionings aside for a season, was
not open to him. He sec himself, without delay or remission,
to attack the problem of life, not in and through the world,
but apart from it. Descartes assumes tacitly that human life
is good to a reasonable man ; Spinoza assumes that there is
some human good so sure and so permanent that by find
ing it the reasonable man can make life good for himself,
and help others to find it good also. The alternative of pes
simism does not occur to them in any form. Descartes
certainly had no reason to complain of the world ; Spinoza,
so far as outward circumstances went, had as little reason to
praise it. But for each of them it was equally impossible to
devise that sort of stimulant for jaded philosophical appetites.
They lived in too fresh and stirring an air.

Spinoza's early mention of ' love towards a thing eternal
and infinite ' reminds us in a manner of the ' Essay on God
and Man.' But the following paragraphs no less foreshadow
the ' Ethics.' He does not rush off to take the Chief Good by
storm, but prepares to make sure of it by artificially conducted
approaches. But for the glimpse he first gave us we should
not know what he had in sight. In considering what is the
true or the chief good, it is to be observed, he says, that good
and evil are only relative terms. < Nothing regarded in its
own nature is to be called either perfect or imperfect ;

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 125

especially when we are satisfied that everything which
happens does so according to an eternal order and fixed laws
of nature.' But man can form the conception of a human
character more constant than his own, and sees that it is pos
sible for his existing character to be improved by approach to
this ideal. He casts about therefore for means which may
help him towards this perfection ; everything that may so
help him is a true good. ' And the chief good is to bring it
to pass that he, together with other persons, if so it may be,
may be endowed with such a character. What that character
is we shall show in its proper place, namely, that it consists in
knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole
of nature. This then is the end for which I make, to acquire
such a character, and to labour that many acquire it with me ;
that is, it belongs to my happiness to endeavour myself that
many others may understand the same that I do, that their
understandings and desires may wholly agree with mine.'
Here is announced the essentially social nature of all human
morality and improvement, which we afterwards find deve
loped in the ' Ethics.' To be wise alone is only half the
battle, and the lesser half; the triumph of the seeker for
wisdom is to find for his fellow-men as well as for himself.
An instructed and enlightened society must be formed if its
members are to attain wisdom. For this end moral philosophy
and the science of education must be cultivated (and how far,
two centuries after Spinoza, we still are from a science of
education) ; and health being an important condition of our
undertaking, medicine in every branch is to be perfected ; l
nor are the mechanical arts to be omitted which multiply the
convenience of life. ' But before all is to be devised a method
of curing the understanding, and purifying it so far as we are

1 Cf. Descartes, Disc, de la Methode, part vi. whose language is stronger. . . .
' S'il est possible de trouver quelque moyen qui rende communement les hommes
plus sages et plus habiles qu'ils n'ont ete jusqu'ici, je crois que c'est dans la
medecine qu'on doit le chercher.'

126 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

able at this stage, that it may succeed in understanding things
as well as possible and without error.' Thus the scope of all
knowledge is the same, the perfection of man's nature ; and
by its tendency to promote that end its usefulness is to be
judged.

Some provisional rules are laid down for the conduct of life
during the period of inevitable ignorance, but they are of no
great moment. One of them looks as if Spinoza thought it
possible at one time that a guarded and judicious introduc
tion of his opinions would save them from being unpopular.
Then we come to the degrees of perception, or as we should
now say, knowledge.

Four kinds are enumerated. We may learn things (i)by
hearsay or on authority (ex auditu) ; (2) by the mere sugges
tion of experience (ab experientia vaga !) ; (3) by reasoning
(essentia rei ex alia re concluditur) ; and (4) by immediate and
complete perception (res percipitur per solam suam essentiam).
Thus a man's birthday, the names and condition of his
ancestors, and the like, are known to him by hearsay ; such
matters as that oil increases fire, and water puts it out, and most
things that make up the common knowledge of life, he knows
by unreasoned experience ; while by reasoning from the
known properties of light and optical instruments we correct
the illusions of our sight as to the size of heavenly bodies, or
from our peculiar experience of our own bodies, we infer that
there is a peculiar relation of some kind between the mind
and the body. We know immediately, or by the nature of
the thing alone, a few of the simplest and most general truths.
A single example, however, will serve to illustrate all the
kinds of knowledge ; and this example alone is retained in
the ' Ethics,' where the classification is repeated, but tradition
and loose experience are taken together as sources of

1 This is a Baconian phrase. Nov. Org. Aph. 100. Sigwart, Spinoza's
Neuentdeckter Tractat, &c. p. 157. Prof. Sigwart s other evidences of Baconian
influence in Spinoza's treatise are not so clear ; the influence, at all events, was a
transitory one.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. I2?

knowledge of the first kind ; reasoning forming the second
kind, and intuition the third and highest. The example
chosen is that of a simple arithmetical proportion.

' Let three numbers be given in order to find a fourth, which
shall be to the third as the second to the first. Tradesmen have
no hesitation in multiplying the second by the third and dividing the
product by the first ; either because they have not forgotten the rule
they once heard from a master without any proof [knowledge
ex auditu~\, or because they have often made trial of it with simple
numbers \_experientia vaga\ or by virtue of the proof in the nineteenth
proposition of the seventh book of Euclid, that is, by the general
property of proportionals [ratio or secundi generis cognitio]. But with
very simple numbers there is no need of this. For example, if the
given numbers be i, 2, 3, no one fails to see that the fourth pro
portional is 6 ; and this much more clearly, because we at once
infer the fourth number from the ratio which we see by a single
intuitive act that the first has to the second/ l

We have to choose between these modes of acquiring in
formation as the means of arriving at exact knowledge, and
thereby at the greatest possible perfection of man's nature.
Tradition and loose experience are obviously uncertain and
untrustworthy. It was Spinoza's intention, as we learn by his
marginal note, to discuss in this place the whole subject of
experimental knowledge and research. Reasoning will lead
us to certainty, if rightly carried out ; ' yet by itself it will not
be a means of attaining our perfection.' The fourth mode of
perception alone (the third kind of knowledge in the nomen
clature of the ' Ethics ') is the only one which is both adequate,
as giving us the whole nature of the thing perceived, and free
from risk. Our task is therefore to find the best and shortest
way for bringing things at present unknown to us within its
grasp.2

* Now that we have learnt what knowledge is needful for us, we
have to deliver a way and method, whereby the things to be known
shall be known with that kind of knowledge. To which end it is

1 Eth. 2, 40, schol. 2. '* De Int. Emend, c. 5.

128 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

first to be considered, that there shall not be here an infinite search :
that is, in order that the best method of discovering the truth may
be found, we do not need another method to discover that, and to
discover the second method we do not want yet a third, and so on
without end. For in this manner we should never arrive at know
ledge of the truth, nor at any knowledge at all. The matter stands
indeed in the same way as that of material instruments, where one
might argue in like manner. For to work iron one must have a
hammer, which hammer must be made ; for which yet another
hammer and other tools are needful, and to produce these again we
shall need other tools, and so on without end : l and in this fashion
one might vainly endeavour to prove that men have no power of
working iron.'

Man has in fact succeeded in making tools and machines
by many progressive steps. At first he used his hands to
obtain, by rough and toilsome processes, a few of the simplest
instruments. By the help of these he made other and better
ones with less labour, and from stage to stage arrived at his
command of mechanical arts. So too the human mind, using
its native strength to procure instruments for its work, pro
ceeds from one undertaking to another till it attains consum
mate wisdom. What then are the instruments with which the
mind is equipped by nature, and which suffice it for the con
struction of other and more finished ones ? They are true
ideas, and the sole and sufficient proof of their truth is fur
nished by themselves. Accordingly the doctrine of method
is not concerned to assign a test of truth to be applied to our
ideas after we have got them ; the problem is to find the due
order in which; truth, the representations of the nature of
things/ >'or true ideas (£.11 which terms are synonymous) are to

1 Cf. the Rabbinical list of * things created between the suns,' in which ' some
say, tongs also, made with tongs.'— C. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers,
v. 9.

2 ' Essentiae obiectivae rerum. ' In Spinoza's usage obiectivus means repre
sented in, or taken as the object of thought, and is often equivalent to the modern
subjective. The correlative term, where the thing is considered in itself, or as we
should now say objectively, isformalis ; so that true knowledge in the mind is said
refer re obiective formalitalem naturae.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 129

be sought for. This naturally appears to a modern reader at
first sight as the most absolute dogmatism. The author seems
to be claiming an arbitrary right to accept anything he pleases
as self-evident. But this is not really the case. Spinoza's
drift in this passage, when freed from the technical form of his
argument, is that by no logical device whatever can we escape
the necessity of starting from something or other as self-evident,
and throwing on its self-evidence the whole weight of all the
subsequent knowledge we may build on our leading assump
tions.

Let us take Spinoza's own explanation in the more concise
and finished form which it assumes in the * Ethics.' In the
second part (Prop. 43) he asserts that ' whoever has a true
idea, knows at the same time that he has a true idea, and
cannot doubt the truth of the thing perceived.'

After the regular demonstration, which is very artificial,
these remarks are added by way of Scholium : —

' It is to be noted that the foregoing proposition is pretty manifest
of itself. For no man who has a true idea is unaware that a true idea
involves the utmost degree of certitude. For to have a true idea
signifies nothing else than to know the thing perfectly or as well as
possible ; nor can any one possibly doubt of this unless he thinks an
idea to be a lifeless thing like a picture on a panel, and not a mode
of thought, to wit the very act of understanding. Who can know, I
ask, that he understands anything, unless he do first understand the
thing? in other words, who can know that he is sure of anything
unless he is first indeed sure of that thing ? Again, what can be
found more clear and certain than a true idea, which may be the
test of truth ? Even as light makes manifest both itself and dark
ness, so is truth the measure of itself and of falsehood.'

Spinoza does not say, be it observed, that every apparent
certainty is true knowledge, but that there is no true know
ledge without certainty, and the certainty is given in the
knowledge itself. In other words, there is ultimately no
external test of truth ; we must be content in the last resort
with the clear and persistent witness of consciousness. This

1 30 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

doctrine is not necessarily transcendental or dogmatic. It is
compatible with a purely empirical account of the origin of
all our knowledge, and indeed is adopted in that connexion
by one of the leading philosophical authors of our own time
and country. Mr. Herbert Spencer's view of the final test of
truth, though he puts it in the negative form as the inconceiv-
ableness of the contrary, is substantially not distinguishable
from Spinoza's. Rightly understood, the doctrine is not an
assumption of infallibility, but a warning against any such as
sumption. When a man is once in possession of the truth, he
cannot doubt it ; but he may well be deceived into supposing
himself in possession of it when he is not. To take an illus
tration used elsewhere by Spinoza himself, a man dreaming
often fancies himself sure that he is awake ; but a man really
awake can never think he is dreaming. The things I see and
feel, my phenomena, are ultimate certainties to me so far as
they go. The difficulty is to ascertain how far they really do
go, to separate the phenomena from my interpretation of them,
which experience has shown to be in many ways liable to
error. Again, when I have clearly grasped the relations
between the parts of a geometrical diagram, I can entertain
no doubt concerning them. Yet before I had sufficiently con
sidered them I might be uncertain, or even entertain a wrong
conception of the geometrical relations and imagine it to be
certainly right. No one knew better than Spinoza how easy
it is to hold confused and erroneous beliefs with absolute con
fidence. Some of the current notions in philosophy and psy
chology which he makes the objects of his most unsparing
attack are precisely those which have been most commonly
maintained on the ground that they are principles given by
consciousness as clear, ultimate, and self-evident.

At the same time there is no reason to doubt that Spinoza
did underrate (as almost all constructive philosophers have
underrated) the difficulty of ascertaining what the ultimate
data of sense and thought really are ; he nowhere undertakes

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 13 r

the analysis of these data, nor does he separate it from the
business of ascertaining concrete truth in particular cases.
Descartes' own testimony is express that he thought the
whole body of possible knowledge to lie, generally if not in
detail, within a moderate compass, and to be deducible from
principles which might be finally settled in a single generation,
when once the problem of method was solved. Spinoza is not
so explicit, but it seems probable that his expectations were
of the same kind. For men in this sanguine frame of mind
it was natural also to underrate the difficulty of procuring ac
ceptance among mankind for the conceptions which to them
appeared to shine with the light of evident and self-justifying
truth. This kind of excessive hope, however, is capable of
being dashed by experience in all but incorrigible visionaries ;
and while it appears, though not extravagantly, in the fragment
'De Intellectus Emendatione,' no sign of it is left in the
1 Ethics.'

So far I have put the matter in my own way, to avoid the

difficulties of Spinoza's vocabulary : but his use of the term

idea calls for some consideration in this place, the point being

too important for the understanding of Spinoza's psychology

to be omitted or evaded. In the passage now before us l idea

is a conscious state of the knowing mind, in which the object

known is represented. This again may become the subject

i of another representation, and so on. ' The man Peter is an

existing thing (quid reale). The true idea of Peter is the

| nature of Peter represented in thought (essentia Petri obiec~

\ tiva), and is itself an existing object wholly distinct from

' Peter.'

This idea of Peter may then be the object of another idea

which will contain by representation (pbiective) all that the
| idea of Peter contains actually (formaliter) ; and again the idea

thus formed of the idea of Peter has its own nature which
; may likewise be the object of another idea, and so on. Thus

De Int. Em. c. 6, § 33.

K 2

132' I SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

now the idea of Peter is not a previous condition of know
ing Peter himself; in other words, knowing that I know is not
a condition of knowledge, but on the contrary the reflective
knowledge is a consequence of the direct. And the certainty
of knowledge is nothing else than the nature of the thing itself
represented in thought ; whence we see again that there is no
ultimate mark of truth outside the truth itself.

So far, then, and as far as the treatise on the ' Amendment
of the Understanding ' goes, Spinoza's idea seems equivalent
to what we now call a concept. But we shall find else
where that it has a wider significance. It always denotes a
mode of thought considered as corresponding to an object, but
the nature of the correspondence may be very different from
that which is here dealt with. The most important case is
that of the human mind, which is spoken of as the idea of the
body associated with it. Now a man can easily think of his
own body, but he is not always doing so, and when he does
his thought will not be accurate unless he has learnt some
thing of physiology. And even if every human being were
an accomplished physiologist, the constant relation of the
mind as a whole to the body as a whole would still be something
different from the relation of the knowing to the known. The
organic sensations which furnish the groundwork for a large
part of our conscious life are not knowledge or concepts. But
Spinoza makes use of the one term idea to denote the two kinds
of relation, and we have to find out by the context which he
means.1 If I think of Peter, the state of my consciousness is an
idea of Peter according to Spinoza's first usage of the term. But
according to his other usage, it is the idea, not of Peter, but of
the corresponding state of my own brain and nerves, or such
parts of them as are, in modern language, the organs of that

1 The corresponding German term Vorstellung is capable of the same latitude.
Hence we find the ambiguity -of Spinoza's own language to some extent reproduced
even by the best of his German expounders. Spinoza himself once calls attention
to the distinction : Eth. 2, 17, schol.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 133

particular phase of conscious thought. In the one sense the
object of the idea is Peter, in the other it is the bodily organism
correlated to the thinking mind. And it is important to observe
that in this other sense idea has a far wider application than in
the first and more familiar sense. The material correlate which
is called the object of the idea may be a living organism, but
also it may not. The idea may coincide with a concept in a
conscious mind, or with a conscious mind forming concepts,
but also it may not. Considering, for example, the whole
material universe as the object, we have a corresponding idea
which, whatever it may be, is not part of any human con
sciousness. In this sense, accordingly, there can be only one
idea of any given object ; in the former sense, in which idea
was equivalent to concept, we might have a distinct and in
dividual idea of the object in every finite mind capable of
thinking about it.

Taking idea in the narrower sense of concept, it is obvious,
as Spinoza points out, that the process denoted by it may be
repeated on the idea itself ; and this either in the conceiving
mind itself or in another. When this takes place in the same
mind, we have a thought thinking upon itself, or reflective j
knowledge. The mind's operation thus taking account of
itself is in Spinoza's language idea ideae. Now Spinoza was
firmly minded to hold fast the unity and continuity of mental
processes. He would have nothing to do with separate facul
ties, much less with an ascending scale of them. When the
mind knows itself, the knowing and the known are one and
the same. In order to enforce this he carries over the term
-idea ideae, naturally framed, as we have seen, on his first sense
of the word idea, to a new employment in the second sense.
Reflective knowledge is idea mentis or idea ideae (where idea
is the concept). The mind itself, as united with the body, is idea
corporis (where idea = correlate in the world of thought).
Spinoza tacitly substitutes correlate for concept in the inter
pretation of idea ideae, and concludes that the idea mentis is

134/ SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

united with the mind as the mind is with the body. But the
mind and the ' idea of the mind ' are both modes of thought.
If therefore they correspond exactly they must be one and the
same thing ; not the same thing under different aspects, as the
mind and body, but the same thing under the same aspect, and
identical to all intents.1 The blending, logically not to be
justified, of the two meanings of idea, seems to give us the
key to some of the difficulties we must hereafter face in the
' Ethics/

Spinoza goes on to say that the object of method is
neither to find a special test of truth (which has been shown
to be needless) nor the actual acquisition of knowledge, but
the guidance of the search for knowledge. Method is ' nothing
else than reflective knowledge or the idea of an idea?** Now
the reflective knowledge which has for its object the idea of
the most perfect being is more excellent than any other.
This idea, then, is the ultimate object of the mind's pursuit.
Here, again, the two senses of idea are not separated. It is
by no means evident that the mind's knowledge of its own
operations is more or less perfect as knowledge by reason of
those operations being concerned with a more or less perfect
subject-matter. To make the assumption intelligible we have
to suppose a correlation as well as a relation between the mind
which knows in the first instance and the object which is
known. What is meant by the idea of the most perfect being
is not further explained in this place ; except that true ideas
in the mind should be produced from * that which represents
the origin and source of all nature,' as the reality of things is
derived from that origin itself. Once more the two distinct
conceptions of representation and correlation are thrown
together under the term idea.

The road by which the human mind is to attain its goal

1 Fth. 2, 22.

2 De Int. Em. c. 7, ad fin. Cf. Descartes, Disc, de la Methode, part ii. ; but
the resemblance is not close.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 135

is practically to be found in the knowledge of its own powers
and of the order of nature. Were the true method once found
and followed, advance would be certain. But it is in truth
seldom found, by reason of men's prejudices, the toil and
clearness of thought needed for the work, and other causes.
Even if the method, being found, were exhibited in action
without any previous warning, it would probably fail to carry
conviction : for it might well happen to lead to unexpected
results, which men would be prone to reject without examina
tion. It is therefore not reasonable to call for an immediate
production of results to test the value of the method by. As
for absolute sceptics, if any such there be, they are by their
own showing beyond the pale of reasonable discourse. A man
who will admit nothing cannot be certain even of his own
doubt, although he cannot live without acting on a great
number of assumptions as to the reality of himself and the

world.

The inquiry, so far as it has gone, is now summed up.
We have ascertained, firstly what is the ultimate object of
our search ; secondly, through what kind of knowledge we
may best attain perfection ; thirdly, what course we must
follow to think rightly from the beginning, or how we may
enlarge our stock of ' true ideas.' To provide for this demand
is the special task of method, and its problems are the
following : —

1. To distinguish a true idea from all other conceptions,
and restrain the mind from others :

2. To deliver rules whereby things unknown may be
brought into knowledge according to this distinction :

3. To establish an order of inquiry whereby we may be
saved useless labour :

4. And to arrive at the ' idea of the most perfect being/
as the surest way to the perfection of our method.

This may not look very promising at first sight to a
student of modern science : especially the fourth canon of

136 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

method has an air of hopelessly unpractical mysticism. But
reflexion will alter this view. The first three rules are open,
in our day at least, only to the objection that they savour of
commonplace. Clearness of conception and avoidance of
confused thought, a procedure step by step from the known
to the unknown, and an arrangement of the whole work such
that every step has its value, and no labour is spent in vain,
are beyond question among the most essential condition^ for
the successful conduct of all scientific inquiry. Every one
seriously concerned with the investigation of truth in philoso
phy, law, natural science, or the practical affairs of life, does
in fact endeavour to fulfil those conditions in his own busi
ness, and the success of the body of his enterprise will be in
proportion to his success in fulfilling them.

The fourth rule is in appearance a harder saying. But
we have already seen that for Spinoza, attached by race and
tradition to the Hebrew sentiment of a one and only supreme
power, and by an intellectual passion to the pursuit of exact
science, the perfection of God, conceived as the most perfect
being, ' constant in all his works/ meant above all things unity
and uniformity. Thus the ' idea of the most perfect being '
includes, if it is not equivalent to, the belief that the whole
nature of things is one and uniform. Now this is the very
first principle of all science. The uniformity of the course of
nature is that to which all lesser uniformities converge, and by
which they are all supported. If we do not call it a law of
nature, it is because there could be no laws of nature and no
science without it. And Spinoza will have no exceptions
from it. In knowing the ' most perfect being,' the mind also
knows itself as part of the universal order and at one with it:
therein finding, as we have to learn elsewhere, the secret of
man's happiness and true freedom. What more Spinoza may
have meant is doubtful : that he meant this much is certain.
Such is not the mind of a dreamer of dogmatic dreams.

Spinoza proceeds to work out the several departments of

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 137

method ; an operation interesting to us not because it is more
likely to lead any one to the actual discovery of truth than
other expositions of the same kind, but because it throws
light on Spinoza's theory of knowledge and helps to make us
familiar with the conceptions afterwards more closely handled
in the ' Ethics.' The first part of method was to distinguish
true ideas from all others : the nature of fiction, error, and
doubt, has therefore to be considered. Fiction or fancy in its
most common shape deals with things considered as possible
but undetermined. We make a supposition which we know
or assume to be consistent in itself, but without knowing the
facts on which its actual truth depends. An omniscient mind
would be incapable of making suppositions of this kind ; l nor
can we make them as to matters of which we are certain. In
another sense, however, we can imagine the contrary of what
is well known to us ; for instance, that the sun goes round
the earth. This is the mental representation of an erroneous
idea which we may have ourselves formerly entertained, or
which might be entertained by others. Again, we make supposi
tions contrary to our immediate perceptions ; as that a candle
burning before us is not burning. This is nothing but an
effort of memory or abstraction ; the recollection of unlighted
candles we have seen, or the image of the candle before us
apart from its flame. Spinoza gives in a note the important
remark that the mind can really create nothing by way of
' fiction,' but can only recall and combine the elements already
given in experience. We remember spoken words and a
tree ; and if attention is directed ' confusedly and without
-distinction ' to these mental representations, we can form the
notion of a tree speaking. As to the fictions which involve
the nature of things apart from or in addition to particular

1 Reading with Sigwart eum or id for nos in § 54, ad init. The correction
had already been made by the contemporary Dutch translator : ' Hier uit volgt dat,
zo' er enig God, of iets alweetend is, hy gantschelijk niets kan verdichten.' —
Nagdate Schriften> p. 423.

138 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

facts, they depend simply on ignorance. The less we know
of nature, the more absurdities can we accept from the work
shop of unregulated fancy ; such as talking trees, magic and
apparitions, transformations of men into stones, and the like.
On the whole, then, the mere fictions of the imagination are
always confused, and will never impose on us if we trace out
their consequences, which if they are absurd will show the
absurdity of the assumption, or analyse them into elements
so simple as to exclude that confused representation of
several things at once which is the essence of baseless fancies.
Positive error (idea falsa) ! is of the same nature as fiction,
differing from it only in the addition of intellectual assent.
The remedy is the same as in the last case, namely, the reduc
tion of our ideas to a degree of simplicity that shall ensure
their being clear and distinct. A perfectly simple idea cannot
be false, provided we understand truth and falsehood in the
sense which Spinoza now proceeds to explain. The truth or
falsehood of an idea does not, in his view, depend so much on
external things as upon the constitution and operation of the
mind itself. An architect conceives in his mind a building of
a new design, which may peradventure never be executed.
If the plan is not repugnant to the laws of construction,2 he
has an idea vera. If a man makes a reckless assertion without
means of knowledge, his judgment is with regard to him not
true, though it may turn out to be in accordance with fact.
' The affirmation that Peter exists is true only with regard to
him who has assured knowledge of Peter's existence.' Again,
even a fiction may be idea vera when it is used consistently
and limited to the purpose for which it was made. Thus we
may imagine a sphere to be generated by the revolution of a
semicircle ; and this conception, though we know that it does
not correspond to any physical fact, is perfectly legitimate and
true for the purpose of defining our conception of a sphere.
If we took it as the statement of a physical event it would

CaP- 9- 2 ' Si quis faber ordine concepit,' &c. § 69.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 139

become false. So the mathematical ideas of imaginary quan
tities and loci, the circular points at infinity, and the like, are
' true ideas ' in Spinoza's meaning, for they are consistently
worked out and lead to intelligible results. Probably Spinoza
would have said the same of the non-Euclidean systems of
geometry which have been the subject of modern speculations.
Truth, in short, is not the correspondence of the concept with
an external object, but the result of .the normal operation of
the mind on elements given by clear and distinct concep
tion. ' Error (falsitas) consists only in this, that somewhat
is affirmed of a thing which is not contained in the concept
we have formed of it ; as motion or rest [i.e. as physical
facts] of a semicircle.' When we make such an affirmation,
' it shows a defect in our conception, or that our thought or
idea is as it were maimed and cut short.' }

Spinoza's definition of truth may seem to verge on para
dox. But his estimate of the value of truth coincides with
that which we derive both from common sense and from
science. Not the bare possession of a fact, but the possession
of it in connexion with other facts which enable us to make
the right use of it, is the object we seek in every particular
inquiry. Disjointed and accidental knowledge is for the most
part little better than none, and may be even worse. On the
other hand we may and constantly do use fictitious conceptions
as the most convenient way of arriving at real results ; and
there is no harm in this if we confine the fiction to its proper
use. Thus the corpuscular theory of light, though known
to be false as a physical hypothesis, may still be used as a
legitimate fiction in geometrical optics : and the language and
conceptions of the Ptolemaic system are still employed in astro
nomy for many purposes. Even the formal part of Spinoza's
exposition is less alien to our ways of thinking than it appears.

1 Cf, Ep. 42, where Spinoza says even more positively that the chain of
' clear and distinct perceptions ' is independent of external circumstances. See
especially § 3.

I4o) SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

When he makes truth consist, in the last resort, in the identity
of ideas clearly seen to be equivalent, falsehood in the juxta
position of incongruous ones, he is really on the same line
of thought as more than one recent inquirer. The position
becomes dogmatic only on the assumption that we have
ideas antecedent to experience ; but of such ideas Spinoza
knows nothing. He does not dwell, it is true, on the practical
necessity of testing our work, in all departments where it can
be so tested, by fresh appeals to experience. But this belongs
to the art of conducting research in the particular subject-
matter, whatever it may be ; and Spinoza does not profess to
give rules extending so far. At the same time it is hardly
open to doubt that Spinoza very much underrated the diffi
culty of making sure of ' clear and distinct ideas ' at the out
set. With all philosophers of all times down to his own, he
supposed that the ultimate elements of things and of know
ledge were comparatively few and simple ; and that when the
fundamental principles were once ascertained, everything could
be explained by deduction from them with very little need for
/ external verification. Previous inquirers, he says, have fallen
into error by not understanding the first principles of the
universe ; ' whereby, proceeding without due order, and con
founding the nature of things with rules which, though true,
j are abstract ' — in modern language, by applying general rules
' or definitions without first ascertaining whether they were
' really applicable to the particular class of facts — * they con
found themselves and distort the order of nature.' He in
stances the materialism of the Stoics, who identified the soul
with the subtlest kind of matter by mixing up a physical con
ception which was clear as far as it went with a confused
notion of mind. ' But we/ he continues, * if we proceed with
as little abstraction as may be, and begin from first principles
at the earliest possible point, that is, from the source and
origin of nature, shall be free from all fear of such illusion.'
The reason why the danger of abstractions disappears is that

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD.

(as we are to learn hereafter) the idea of the first principle of
nature is not and cannot be an abstraction. ' This is in fact a
being single and infinite, that is, it is the whole of being,
beside which no being is found.' 1

This ' being single and infinite ' is that which has been
already proposed as the final object of all knowledge, the
knowledge of it being man's only durable good. And we
may fitly observe here the reason why the idea of this being
is justly denied by Spinoza to be abstract. We may arrive
at an abstract idea of being by forming more and more general
notions which, as we proceed from one to another, shall com
prise a greater number of subordinate kinds and individuals
agreeing in fewer attributes ; until at length we arrive at a
bare notion of being in which no distinct attribute is left.
This is the vanishing-point of logical classification, where
there is no longer a handle for the dividing mind to lay hold
of. But this abstraction is quite different from our conception
of the sum of things as a whole, which is the conception not
of a class or genus but of existing things, and is no more
abstract than the conception of any object or assemblage of
objects which cannot be directly presented to sense. To a
certain extent this may be illustrated by simpler examples.
We have the general -name army, and a corresponding general
or abstract idea. But the name of the British army, and the
idea called up by it, stand for no abstraction, but for a certain
real aggregate of men, together with their arms, horses, and
various munitions of war, all which are definite existing things.
In our idea of the British army as it exists at a given moment,
as when the Mutiny Act for next year comes into operation,
there is no abstraction at all. There is a sort of abstraction
when we regard the army as a body which retains an histori
cal and moral continuity notwithstanding the changes of men,
material, and organization which are constantly taking place
in it : but this, as may easily be seen, has no analogy in the
1 Cap. 9, §§ 74-76.

142 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

course of nature as a whole. For changes of this kind are
from without, or with regard to something outside the subject
of change : but there is nothing outside the whole of nature.
Now the idea of the whole of being, as Spinoza calls it, is
the idea of the whole actual sum of existence and of all its
consequences : and it differs from the abstract idea of being
in the same way that our thought of the British army differs
from our thought of an army in general, but in an even
greater degree. It is not a vanishing conception which eludes
the understanding by having no real contents, but it baffles
the imagination because its contents are too rich and mani
fold to be grasped. And it has the singular property that no
abstraction can be formed from it. The universe, as including
ieverything, is manifestly sui generis, or rather above all genera
and species : we cannot speak of this or that universe, for
then it would be a universe no longer. But all this may so
far seem to be mere trifling with words. For suppose we have
an idea of the universe or whole sum of being, which, em
bracing as it does all particular existence, is necessarily single
and all-containing, what then ? Where is the mighty profit
which, according to Spinoza, we are to derive from the con
templation of it ? Nothing is more certain than that no man
ever made or will make a discovery of any moment in art or
science by dint of thinking on the nature of things at large.
But it is no less an assured fact that discoveries are not made
without belief in the nature of things, by which I mean the
sure trust that under all diversity of appearances there is a
certain and sufficient order, that there is no maze which has
not somewhere a clue. Belief in the nature of things is the
mainspring of all science and the condition of all sound
thinking, unless there be some kind of sound thinking which
diverges from sound reason. Now Spinoza's philosophy is
the enthronement of reason, and it is this belief that he re
quires. The truth is that his idea of the sum and source of
all being, or the most perfect being, in other words, of God,

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD.

143

as he afterwards explained that name in the ' Ethics,' in
cludes the idea of uniformity as ruling all events whatever,
and this uniformity is regarded as inseparable from the unity
of the only and all-embracing whole. ' Deus est summe
constans in suis operibus.' The Mosaic conception of
the one God of Israel wedded to the Lucretian concep
tion, revived though with bated breath by Descartes, of
the one and inflexible nature of things ; such is the mood
Spinoza would have us bring to the questioning of the world,
such the majesty and gravity of nature in his eyes. Here
we have no matter of verbal definitions, but a fundamental
principle ; and whoever would enter into Spinoza's mind
must first feel himself at home in this the central point of
Spinoza's philosophy.

Let us return for the present to the fragment on Method
which is our text in this chapter. Having spoken of true and
false ideas, Spinoza goes on to the nature of doubt, which
can take place, he says, only in the case of ideas which are
confused or imperfect. We know by past experience that
error is possible, but have not the means of ascertaining or
removing the possible sources of it in the particular case.
Ignorant people are confident because they know nothing of
their liability to mistake ; thus a rustic stares and disbelieves
when he is told that the sun is much bigger than a clod of
earth. So that doubt may be said always to arise from our
inquiries not being pursued in a due order. Here again there
is the tacit assumption that it is possible to conform to an
ideal type of order in every kind of investigation, so as to
'ensure demonstrative certainty for every step; in other
words, that a general and infallible theory of method can be
found.1 What Spinoza says of memory in the next chapter
is more fully repeated in the ' Ethics/ and may be here
passed over : but his summary of the results thus far obtained
is important. He dwells on the point that error has been

1 DC Int. Em.> cap. 10.

U4 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

shown to be a product not of the understanding but of the
imagination.

1 As to a true idea,' he proceeds, ' we have shown that it is simple
or compounded of simple ideas j that it shows how and why something
is or has become what it is ; and that the effects of the object as
represented in the mind correspond to the reality of the object itself.1
Which was indeed the meaning of the ancients when they said that
true knowledge proceeds from the cause to the effects ; save that they
never to my knowledge conceived, as we do here, the mind as acting
conformably to fixed laws and like an immaterial automaton.
Hence we have gained, so far as we might at the outset, the descrip
tion of our understanding, and such a rule of true ideas as leaves us
in no fear of confounding true things with false or feigned ; neither
shall we wonder why we understand sundry things that are in no wise
subject to the imagination, while others are in the imagination which
are wholly repugnant to the understanding, and others again agree
therewith. For we know that the operations by which the works of
imagination are produced have place according to laws of their own
wholly diverse from those of the understanding, and that the mind,
as regards the imagination, is in a merely passive condition. Whence
it also appears how easily those may fall into great error who have
not been careful to distinguish between the acts of imagination and
of understanding.'

This distinction is one of the corner-stones of Spinoza's
psychology : and the conception of knowledge as an activity
of the mind — which, as we may remember, is not found in the
early treatise ' Of God and Man ' — is of hardly less importance
in his mature work. He now applies his doctrine of the ima
gination to illustrate the fallacies of common language. The
passage is remarkable.

* Since words belong to the imagination (that is to say, we form
many notions according as the words expressing them are confusedly
put together in the memory by reason of particular bodily conditions),

i ' Quod ipsius effectus obiectivi in anima procedunt ad rationem formalitatis
ipsius obiecti.' One might be tempted to read affectus for effectus. But effectus
obiectivi is probably equivalent to the ordo et connexio idearum of Eth. 2, 7. As to
'automaton spirituale,' which occurs immediately below, cf. what Descartes says
of the body in the Treatise of the Passions, §§6, 16.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. I45

we cannot doubt that words, no less than imagination, may be
the source of many grievous errors, unless we are very watchful
against them. Besides, they are framed after the fancy and capacity
of the common sort, so that they are but signs of things as they are
in the imagination, not as they are in the understanding. Which
is evident from this, that on all such things as lie in understanding
only and not in imagination they have fixed names that are often
times negative, as are incorporeal, infinite, and the like. Many other
things which are in truth affirmative they express in negative terms,
and conversely,1 because in each case the contrary is far easier to be
imagined : thus the names occurred in that easier form to the men
who first framed them, and they used positive terms for negative
ideas. There is much that we affirm and deny because the nature
of language allows us so to do, and yet the nature of things doth not ;
so that, not knowing this last, we might well take falsehood for truth.'

Spinoza proceeds 2 to the second part of the doctrine of
method, which prescribes as the ends to be sought, first the
possession of clear and distinct ideas ' produced by the pure
operation of the mind, not by casual bodily motions ; ' next
the reduction of these to unity. For this purpose we must
endeavour so to connect and order our ideas ' that our mind,
so far as possible, may represent in thought the reality of
nature both as a whole and in its parts.' Finite things must
be understood through their immediate causes; 'for the
knowledge of an effect is in truth nothing else than acquiring
a more perfect knowledge of the cause.' Hence it appears,
adds Spinoza in a note, that we can understand no part of
nature without at the same time increasing our knowledge of
the first cause or God ; in modern language, every true expla
nation of a particular fact gives us a particular piece of the
single and universal order of nature, and thereby adds to our
knowledge of that order. « Therefore,' the text continues, ' so

1 The Latin here repeats instances of terms negative in form, but gives none
of terms affirmative in form but negative in meaning. There seems to be some
confusion or omission in the text. In the first sentence of the paragraph here
translated, it is not clear whether the subject of compommtur is verba or concert**
I have assumed the former.

2 Cap. 12.

146 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

long as our business is inquiry concerning actual things, we
may never form any conclusion from abstract notions ; and
we shall use exceeding care not to confound that which is
only in the understanding with that which is in the thing
itself.'

To appreciate the significance of this we must bear in
mind that Spinoza was a thorough-going nominalist. And
further on he says that our chief aim should be to acquire
knowledge of particulars. Such an outspoken abjuration of
all figments and preconceived notions might almost be ex
pected to introduce without more ceremony an exhortation
to practical observation. But Spinoza proceeds otherwise:
he tells us that the best way is to work from the true defini
tion of the thing investigated, and that the next problem is
to fix the conditions of such a definition.

What he says on this topic l is very characteristic. ' A
definition, it it is to be called perfect, must explain the very
nature of the thing, and beware of using instead thereof only
some of its properties.' He gives as an example the defini
tion of a circle, which he chooses merely for convenience ; a
circle being, like all geometrical figures, an abstraction, so
that it really matters not which of the possible definitions we
take.2 If we define a circle as a figure such that the radii
from the centre to the circumference are equal, we get only a
particular property of the circle, and have not accounted for
the circle itself. And if we were dealing with a real thing
this would be serious. The true definition of a created (which
practically means finite 3) thing should satisfy two conditions,
i. It must include the immediate cause (causa proximo] of
the thing. 2. It must be such that all the properties of the

1 Cap. 13.

' Figura non aliud quam determinatio, et determinatio negatio est.' Ep. 50,
§ 4. Modern readers, however, will have no difficulty in admitting that a circle or
hyperbola is not a physically existing thing.

8 Not exactly, for res creata here must = modus in the 'Ethics,' and Spinoza
speaks of infinite modes. (See above, p. 108.)

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 147

thing, so far as it is considered apart from everything else,
can be deduced from it. In the case of the circle these con
ditions would be fulfilled by defining it as the figure described
by the free extremity of a straight line whose other end is
fixed. As to the definition of an uncreated thing, it must
show that the thing is not explained by reference to anything
outside itself, which Spinoza calls the exclusion of a cause ; it
must make the existence of the thing evident ; the explana
tion must involve no abstract notions ; and all the properties
of the thing must be deducible from the definition, which
however is not so material in this case.

All this is at first sight perplexing, and if we take the
terms in their common meaning it is hardly intelligible. We
have then to consider what Spinoza really meant by a defini
tion, and what was the causa proximo, which, wherever a cause
is admissible, the definition must include. He requires of a
definition, as it appears to me, a great deal more than logicians
require ; so much that it may fairly be suggested that what
he calls a definition would now be called a scientific explana
tion. It is not merely an equation of names, but an equation
of ideas corresponding to a constant relation between facts,
and expressing the reduction of something unknown to terms
of known elements. If this be so, the ' immediate cause ' is
the known condition or set of conditions in terms of which the
unknown thing can be expressed. Definition is the same pro-
cess, considered with regard to the observer's mind, which is
explanation when we consider it with regard to the object.
As the object is to our idea of it, so is explanation to defini
tion ; explanation resolves the given phenomenon into better
known or more familiar elements of fact, definition resolves
the idea of it into better known or more familiar elements of
thought. On this view it is quite natural that where there is no
: real physical sequence, as in the case of geometrical figures, the
! causa proxima should be different as we approach the subject
I from one or another direction, and that, as Spinoza says, it

L 2

148 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

should matter little which direction we take. The causa proximo,
of a circle, if we confine ourselves to pure geometry, is the
revolution of a straight line. But in analytical geometry it is
otherwise. Although it is easy to show that this process will
give a circle, the ' immediate cause ' of a circle will not be any
such graphical process, but the existence of a certain relation
among the coefficients of the general equation of the second
degree. For in analytical geometry the general notion of a
curve of the second order is prior to that of any particular kind
such as circle or ellipse : and from this general conception can
be deduced not only the familiar geometrical properties of the
circle, but others which are neither demonstrable nor intelli
gible except from the more general point of view.

We may also find more practical examples of that which
(as I venture to suggest) Spinoza means to require in a defini
tion. A chemical formula will give us a fairly good illustra
tion. In this case the formula describes the thing exactly
and in terms of its * immediate cause,' namely, the elements
by whose combination in definite proportions it is formed.
And the definition itself leads to a scientific knowledge of the
thing defined which is incomplete only by reason that our
knowledge of the simple elements and of the dynamical laws
according to which combination takes place is not complete.
Or, to take another example from a science which is not
physical, Savigny's definition of Agreement ( Vertrag) as a
legal term furnishes us with a perfect instance of what is
sought by Spinoza. Most of the definitions found in our
law books, and not least the definitions of Contract, are loose
and unsatisfying. They are vague, insufficient, and redun
dant ; they assume knowledge of other matters that have
never been explained ; they fail, in Spinoza's language, to
expound the thing defined in terms of its causa proxima. But
Savigny goes to the root of the matter and gives us a clear
statement of the simple elements that make up the legal
idea. His definition is accurate and exhaustive, and therefore

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 149

fruitful. Or take, again, the minuter analysis by which the
first chapter of the Indian Contract Act arrives at the more
specific conception of contract. It builds up the causa
proximo, step by step in a series of elements, none of which,
taken alone, would have any legal effect, but which combine
to form the complex event whose legal significance is denoted
by the technical term.

The last chapter of Spinoza's treatise now in hand, which
however breaks off abruptly, shows that the way to a defini
tion, as understood by him, was not to discuss the application
of a word, but to consider what we know about the thing-
denoted by it. True it is that the greater part of the words
and ideas in ordinary use are in the present state of our know
ledge not capable of being defined at all in this sense. The
definition of any * natural kind,' to use J. S. Mill's term, would
have to give us not only the specific characteristics of the
kind in question, but their ' immediate cause,' in other words,
to show how they come to be what they are : and it is barely
conceivable that in this region of natural history we shall
ever get beyond more or less probable conjecture. We have
verae causae in natural selection, adaptation, and the like, but
to assign the proxima causa of any existing type we should
have to know exactly in what manner and proportions their
effects took place in the particular instance. There is no
reason to suppose, however, that Spinoza would have been
afraid of saying that very few perfect definitions had been
found or could be expected. The statement made earlier in
the treatise (c. 4, § 22) that he had as yet been able to com
prehend but very few things with the fourth or most perfect
kind of knowledge, ' ubi res percipitur per solam suam es-
sentiam vel per cognitionem suae proximae causae,' is indeed
equivalent to this. I have little doubt that Spinoza believed
his own definition of God, the sum and origin of all existence
(to which we shall come afterwards) to satisfy the conditions
here laid down by him ; I am by no means sure that he did

SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

not consider it the only perfect definition attainable, except
those of geometrical and other abstfact conceptions, and
possibly of the ' infinite modes.' It is impossible to see how
his requirements can be strictly complied with in the case of
any finite thing whatever : and it is equally impossible to sup
pose that he overlooked so manifest a difficulty.

Spinoza's next topic is ' the means of knowing eternal
things.' l We must constantly derive our ideas, he says, from
physical or really existing things, proceeding according to the
series of causes from one really existent thing to another, and
so as never to pass over into abstract and universal notions.
So far there is not much difficulty in accepting his counsel ;
but we come upon an explanation which seems to unsettle
everything. We are bidden to note that the series of causes
and realities here mentioned is not a series of particular and
mutable things ' but only of constant and eternal ones.' It
is beyond human powers to follow up the innumerable and
complicated sequences of particular things : but it is also
needless, for the actual train of events or ' order of existence '
among finite things depends on external circumstances, and
the ' very nature ' (intima essentid) of things is to be sought
in the ' constant and eternal things/ and the laws whereof
those things are as it were the tables, and by which the
course of all mutable things is governed. These ' constant
and eternal' things are themselves particular (singularia),
but, as they are present and operative everywhere, we must
regard them as universal with regard to all mutable things,
and as being the < immediate causes ' of all other particular
existence.

What can these eternal things be ? The interpretation
that lies nearest at hand for a modern reader is to identify
them with the constant relations among phenomena which
we now call the laws of nature. But this is evidently not
admissible. Spinoza, the downright enemy of abstractions

1 Cap. 14.

THE DOCT'RINE OF METHOD. 15 r

and universals, knew the difference between relations and
things far too well to confuse them in this way. Besides, he
wanted no artificial way of describing laws of nature ; the
name was already familiar in his time, and he could speak of
them, when he thought fit, just as we do. In fact, he does
speak of the ' eternal things ' as having laws of their own in
some way attached to or involved in them, which pervade
the whole world of phenomena. Clearly, therefore, the things
in question are not themselves laws. Another explanation
is offered by a writer who has done excellent work for the
history of Spinoza's philosophical ideas, Professor Sigwart of
Tubingen. He says with some confidence, on the strength
of certain resemblances in language between our treatise and
the ' Novum Organum,' that the ' eternal things ' of Spinoza
are identical with the Forms of Bacon's doctrine of Method.
But surely this will not serve either. For the Baconian
Forms are not things at all, certainly would not be recognized
as such by Spinoza : and if we are to find a parallel in this
treatise to what Bacon meant by the Form of a thing, it
seems to me that it would be more hopefully sought in
Spinoza's causa proximo,. And Spinoza's nominalism, which
we have always to bear in mind, is a sufficient warning
against assuming that the ' eternal things ' have anything to
do with kinds, qualities, or classification.

*My own opinion is perhaps too simple to be accept
able.1 We have just found in the chapter treating of defini
tion that Spinoza, for whatever reason, sometimes used
general terms when his description was really meant to
apply to very few instances or even to a solitary one.

1 It is not far removed from Trendelenburg's, Histor. Beitrdge zur Phil
iii. 387. But he seems to identify Spinoza's ' eternal things ' not with the infinite
modes themselves, but with their laws or relations. See, too, Leibnitz's marginal
note on this passage, ap. Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, Descartes, et Spinoza, p. 123.
It consists of this list : Deus, spatium, materia, motus, potentia universi, intel-
lectus agens, mundus. The words in italics are cancelled. The others, I suspect,
were meant by Leibnitz, not for an interpretation of Spinoza, but for an improve
ment on him.

152 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Accordingly we need not expect to find any great number
of 'eternal things/ if we succeed in finding them at all.
There would be nothing repugnant to Spinoza's habit of
thought and discourse if there turned out to be very few of
them. But when the illusory expectation of a large class of
things, representing some such higher order of existence as
the Platonic Ideas, is once done away with, the true solution
presents itself, as I think, readily enough. The ' eternal
things ' are simply the ' infinite modes ' which afterwards
occur in the 'Ethics,' and which we have had occasion to men
tion in speaking of the influence exercised on Spinoza by
the physical conceptions of Descartes.1 These are, in the
material world, in the first place Motion, which to a disciple
of the Cartesian physics was a real, eternal, and constant
thing ; in the second place, as presupposing Motion, the
material universe itself, taken as a sum of existence which
is constant under all its changing aspects. In the world
of thought we have, corresponding to Motion, a fact or
process called 'infinite intellect;' what should answer
in thought to the sum of material things, the 'fades totius
universi,' we are not told.2 We must also assume other cor
responding facts without limit in other aspects of existence
capable of being related to minds associated with them in
ways analogous to the relation of the material universe to
human thought; but these could be no part of human
experience, nor imaginable by human faculties. This results
from the theory of the Infinite Attributes, of which there is
no mention in the present treatise.

The assertion that all particular things happen according
to the laws of the ' eternal things ' are on the view here taken
equivalent, so far as concerns the material world, to saying
that all physical events are ultimately explicable by dyna
mical laws. And to what could Spinoza more appropriately
ascribe 'presence in all parts and unbounded operation ' than

1 P. 108, above. 2 Ep> 66> ad ^

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 153

to Matter and Motion ? Again, a certain configuration of
matter under dynamical conditions would be most naturally
described in Spinoza's language as the causa proximo, of every
individual object.1 But we are left without any farther light
by Spinoza, for he goes into an auxiliary discussion of the
nature and powers of the understanding : and with the
chapter containing this the work breaks off. He enumerates
the properties of the understanding, as the only practicable
way of arriving at the full knowledge or definition of its
nature. He speaks not of human understanding, but of the
operations of human thought (nostras cogitationes) as depend
ing on the nature of understanding in general : and I think
there is room for more than a suspicion that the object of the
definition which was never completed was to be not the
human understanding as such, but ' intellectus absolute
infinitus.' We shall here take note of only one of the propo
sitions laid down as to the properties of intellect, which throws
light on Spinoza's distinction between understanding and
imagination, and is the first occasion of his using a phrase on
which the difficulties of the last Part of the Ethics may in
great measure be said to turn. ' It perceives things not so
much under the head of duration, as under a certain form of
eternity and without finite number ; or rather it attends to the
perception itself and not to number or duration. But when
it imagines things, it perceives them as certain in number,
and with a definite duration and quantity.'

This appears to mean that acts of pure intellect (such as
the perception of a general truth in physics) are of universal
validity and have no reference to particular events as such.

For example, the theoretical statement of the flight of a
projectile in a resisting medium under the influence of gravity,

1 What Spinoza actually says, however, is that the ' fixa et aeterna ' (instead
of the particular configurations) are themselves the causae proximae. This is not
exact, and the comparison of this passage with Eth. i. 28 goes to show that he
afterwards perceived the inaccuracy.

154 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

and of the energy transferred to other bodies by its impact,
is equally applicable at all times, everywhere, and to one or
a thousand experiences, assuming the laws of matter and
motion to suffer no change. It is an affirmation ' sub quadam
specie aeternitatis et numero infinito.' On the other hand
the observation of the course and effects of a projectile in a
particular experiment is the record of a specific event which
happened at a given time and place, and otherwise under
defined conditions : so much initial velocity, so much less at
the end of successive seconds, so many foot-tons of striking
energy, such and such fractures and displacements in the
target. The facts are found 'sub certo numero, determinata
duratione et quantitate.' I am not unconscious that interpre
tations of this kind are perilous ; but I believe that the present
one is near enough to the substance of Spinoza's meaning to
be of some assistance until a better is found.

THE NATURE OF THINGS

155

CHAPTER V.

THE NATURE OF THINGS.

Know in thyself and the world one selfsame soul :
Banish the dream that sunders the part from the whole.

SANKARA AcnXRYA.
I am that which began ;

Out of me the years roll ;
Out of me God and man ;
I am equal and whole ;
God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily ; I am the soul.

SWINBURNE, Hertha.

HAVING in foregoing chapters learnt to know something of
Spinoza's habit of thought, we are now prepared to go up into
the heart and citadel of his philosophy as we find it set forth
in the ' Ethics.' I have endeavoured to make the philosopher
himself in some measure smooth the reader's path to the dif
ficulties of his great work : but it is not to be supposed that
these difficulties can be wholly done away. Spinoza has cast his
thought in singular and even startling forms, and we must be
content to grapple with the form if we mean to grasp the
substance. Yet it may not be useless to give at one's own
risk a sort of free translation of the thought which, according
to the view here taken of Spinoza's general purpose, may be
apprehended as underlying the elaborate construction of his
metaphysic. It seems to me that in modern language it may
be rendered somewhat as follows.

Europe had for centuries been filled with the noise of
scholastic discussion over questions incomprehensible to ordi
nary sense, of which the staple was furnished by such terms as
substance, attribute, essence, existence, eternity. And these terms

156 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY,

were the established stock in trade, as it were, not only of
philosophical language but of philosophical thought. Such
as they were, these were the tools with which Spinoza had to
work. Even if he could have conceived the notion of dis
carding them altogether and inventing new ones, which how
ever was in his circumstances not possible, it was only by
keeping them in use that he had any prospect of inducing
students of philosophy to listen to him. But the powerful
and subtle minds which had exercised themselves on these
ideas had troubled themselves but little as to their relation to
actual things and man's knowledge of them. It was assumed
that the foundations had been settled once for all, while the
flood of new ideas, unseen and irresistible, was in truth ad
vancing to break them up. The cunningly wrought structure
of mediaeval philosophy was doomed ; and now that it has
crumbled away philosophy goes houseless, though not des
pairing ; for after all it is better to be a wanderer than to
dwell in castles in the air.

But meanwhile what was a man in Spinoza's place to do ?
The terms were there to his hand, still the only currency of
scholars ; the ideas for which they had been framed were
dead or dying, and the great scientific conception of
the unity and uniformity of the world, often seen as in
visions, but now unveiled in all its power by Descartes,
had already begun to spread abroad, subduing everything
to its dominion. A sincere and unflinching eye could
already see that in the end nothing would escape from it, not
even the most secret recesses of human thought. Only in
the light of this conquering idea could the old words live, if
they were to live at all. If any vital truth lay hidden in them
from of old, it would thus be brought out and bear its due
fruit ; and what new life was wanting must be breathed into
them through the new conception of the nature of things.
This, I believe, was in effect the task Spinoza took upon him
self. It cannot be maintained that it was altogether a pos-

THE NATURE OF THINGS.

157

sible one ; and it is at least doubtful whether Spinoza himself
was fully aware of its magnitude. I do not think he realized
the extent of the revolution which was really involved in his
use of philosophical terms. He seems to have been in perfect
good faith shocked and surprised at the vehemence of the
opposition excited by his opinions, though, from the point of
view of the objectors, nothing could be more natural. He
thought he was correcting erroneous interpretations when he
was in truth abrogating the text. Thus we find almost
everywhere in his work scientific and essentially modern
thought clothed in the semblance of scholastic forms ; and
this creates for a modern reader an illusion which it is ex
tremely difficult to shake off. It seems at first sight a mere
paradox to say that Spinoza is not only more scientific than
his predecessors, but, allowing for the unavoidable defects of
his physical knowledge, as scientific as any modern philo
sopher whatever ; that, so far from his metaphysical principles
being repugnant or foreign to scientific thinking, it is just
the thoroughly scientific cast of Spinoza's thought which has
made his work a stumbling-block to the greater part of his
readers ; and that when he has been misunderstood, it has
generally been because his interpreters have not had enough
of scientific training or temper to understand him rightly.
Nevertheless I hope to show that this apparent paradox is
true.

In the exposition of his philosophy Spinoza follows a
suggestion made by Descartes, and throws it into a highly
artificial form borrowed from the usage of geometry. There
is the same array of definitions, axioms, propositions, and
corollaries, as in Euclid ; and every step in the argument
purports to be definitely warranted by something already
demonstrated or claimed as self-evident. Only the diagrams
are wanting to complete the external resemblance. Few
readers will at the present time be found to doubt that this
proceeding was on the whole unfortunate. It gives to

iS8 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Spinoza's work, in addition to its real difficulties, a needless
air of abstruseness and technicality.

Probably many students have been thus frightened away
before they had made any real acquaintance with his thought.
The geometrical form of exposition has also led to much ex
aggerated language about the rigid consistency of Spinoza's
system. Admirers have pushed their enthusiasm on this
point into hyperbole, and critics, taking them at their word,
have assumed that the whole system would be disposed of if
they could succeed in picking holes in a few of the definitions.
Again, critics have been misled in another way by the sup
position that Spinoza's doctrines were intimately connected
with the form in which they were stated ; and no small in
genuity has been wasted on tracing his real or supposed
mistakes to his reliance on the geometrical method. This
oversight, though perhaps natural, might have been avoided
by more careful consideration of Spinoza's other works, as we
have already had occasion to point out. Lastly, it is very
possible that in some ways this artificial mode of exposition
had an unfavourable influence on Spinoza himself. I am
disposed to think, in particular, that it materially disguised
from him the nature and extent of the assumptions on which
his work was really founded, and of the tacit appeals to ex
perience contained in them. In geometry these appeals rest
on a ground so broad and secure that, except for the higher
geometry which involves discussion of the nature of geometri
cal truth itself, it does not matter whether they are recognized
or not : but in philosophy it is otherwise.

It seems therefore not only permissible but desirable to
depart considerably from the strict order of the original in the
endeavour to give a generally intelligible outline of the ' Ethics.'
But we cannot altogether leave the peculiar form out of sight :
for much that is important and characteristic depends on
Spinoza's use of particular expressions, which cannot be
understood without reference to his definitions. And before

THE NATURE OF THINGS.

159

we go farther it will be convenient to translate once for all the
Definitions of the First Part. They are as follows :—

DEFINITIONS.

1. By self -caused (causa sui) I understand that of which the
essence involves existence, that is, whose nature cannot be conceived
otherwise than as existing.

2. A thing is called finite in its kind, which can be limited by
another of the same nature. For example, a body is called finite,
because we may always conceive another as greater. So a thought
is limited by another thought. But a body is not limited by thought,
nor a thought by body.

^ 3. By substance I understand that which is in itself and is con
ceived by itself ; that is, whose concept needs not the concept of
another thing for it to be formed from.

4. By attribute I understand that which intellect perceives con
cerning Substance, as constituting the essence thereof.1

5. By mode I understand the affections of Substance, or that
which is in somewhat else, through which also it is conceived.

6. By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is,
Substance consisting of infinite attributes, whereof each one expresses
eternal and infinite being.

Explanation. I say infinite absolutely, not in its own kind. For
whatever is infinite only in its own kind may have infinite attributes
denied of it; but if it is absolutely infinite, there belongs to its nature 2
whatever expresses reality,2 and involves no denial.

7. A thing is called free, which exists by the mere necessity of its
own nature and is determined to action by itself alone : but necessary,
or rather constrained, if it is determined by something else to exist
and operate in a certain determined manner.

8. By eternity I understand existence itself, so far as it is con
ceived to follow necessarily from the mere definition of the eternal
thing.

Explanation. For such existence is conceived as an eternal
truth, as well as the essence of the thing, and therefore cannot be

1 An earlier form of this definition is given in Ep. 27 : ' I understand the
same by attribute, except that it is called attribute with respect to the under
standing, which attributes to substance such a determined nature as aforesaid. '

2 The Latin has essentiam in both places.

160 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

explained in terms of duration or time, though its duration be con
ceived as without beginning or end.

Of these definitions the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth
contain the fundamental ideas of Spinoza's metaphysic.
The others may go without comment for the present except
the first, which is remarkable rather for what it does not say
than for what it says. Spinoza takes the current phrase
causa sm, and defines it in a manner which leaves causation
wholly out of account. In fact, his definition implies that
the use of the word cause in this sense is really inappropriate :
and except so far as we are left to assume the converse,
namely, that everything which can ' be conceived otherwise
than as existing ' must, if it does exist, be said to be caused
by something else, he does not tell us what he understands
by the word Cause in any other use. In the axioms, indeed
(ax. 4) he says ' the knowledge of an effect depends on the
knowledge of the cause and involves it.' This must mean, if
it is to give any acceptable sense, the knowledge of the effect
as such ; in that sense it is obviously true, but throws no direct
light on Spinoza's conception of causation. Yet, when we
couple it with the absence of any further definition, it does
appear to suggest something very much at variance with the
notions commonly formed about Spinoza's philosophy. This
is that, so far from regarding causation as a kind of mysterious
power which keeps together the order of nature, Spinoza
regarded Cause and Effect as correlated terms framed by us
to detach parts of the order of nature from the whole for
more convenient examination, and nothing else. We know
that he believed with an intense and vivid belief in the con
tinuity of all natural phenomena and processes. Several
modern thinkers have independently come to the conclusion
that this same continuity does not suffer us to look upon the
notion of Cause and Effect as other than a convenient artifice
to keep our materials within manageable bounds. It is the

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 161

separation of that which is separable only in thought.1
Spinoza calls time and space, considered as measurable
quantities, ' aids of the imagination : ' on this view causation
would be an ' aid of the imagination ' too. But if we assume
a real causal power or nexus, the law of causation becomes
the most universal law of nature, prior even to that of uni
formity ; for we might conceive the causal power to be
universal but capricious in its operation. Had Spinoza held
this opinion, we might surely expect to find causality promi
nent among the * constant and eternal things ' which gave us
some trouble to explain in the treatise on the Amendment of
the Understanding (p. 150, above). It would indeed hold a
unique and supreme position among laws of nature on
Spinoza's system : for it would not only be universal in each
Attribute, but common to all the Attributes. But of all this
there is no hint, so far as I know, in any part of Spinoza's
writings.

If the inference now suggested is correct, Spinoza would
have said that infinite intellect forms no idea of cause and
effect, except as being an idea present in finite minds.2 For
a mind possessing infinite capacity and means of knowledge
would perceive all things at once as being, and necessarily
being, what they are and not otherwise ; but would not
perceive the necessity as distributed, so to speak, over the
particular states and operations of nature. To perceive
things as necessary is to perceive them as they are, and the
necessity of each thing is no other than the necessity of the

! G. H. Lewes, in Problems of Life and Mind, vol. ii. ; Mr. Shad worth Hodg
son, in his Philosophy of Reflection, 1878 ; cf. Mr. Carveth Read's remarks in his
Essay on the Theory of Logic, 1878 ; and see W. K. Clifford, Aims and Instru
ments of Scientific Thought, in Lectures and Essays, Lond. 18/9, vol. i. p. 149.
Cf. also Trend elenburg's suggestion (Hist or. Beitrdge, iii. 275), that Causation
in general (die abstracte Causalitat) may be resolved into the idea of Motion ;
Motion being considered as equally real on the subjective and the objective side.

2 The position suggested might be expressed in Spinoza's language thus : ' In
Dei infinite intellectu non dari obiective ideam causae singularis ; sive tantum
eatenus dari, quatenus humanac mentis naturam constituit.'

1 62 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

universal order.1 If it had occurred to any correspondent to
put to Spinoza the particular question here proposed, we
should possibly have had a decisive answer. As it is, we are
left to conjecture, but not without probability to guide us.
Spinoza does actually say that infinite intellect forms no
general ideas. Therefore, in addition to what has been
already said, there seems to be no alternative between hold-

!i ing that Spinoza regarded cause and effect as merely the
machinery of finite conceptions, and that he thought causa-

j tion as much a real thing as matter and motion.

What is it that Spinoza regards as ' self-caused ' within
the meaning of his first definition ? The reply is given by
the definition of Substance and by the chain of propositions
formally showing that the two coincide. Substance is that
which is ' in itself or self-subsistent, and is conceived by or
through itself, that is, without assuming anything else to exist.
In other words, it can be conceived as existing without any
external reason for its existence. But we cannot seriously
apply such a conception to anything short of the whole sum
of being, within which we may seek for the reason of particular
things, but outside which we cannot go. Explanation is of
the relations between particular things ; the universe in its
entirety is inexplicable. And to say of the universe, in the
scholastic language retained by Spinoza, that its essencejn-
volves existence, does not really import any greater assump
tion than that something does exist. It may indeed be asked
what we mean by existence ; and the question is not only a
reasonable but an important one. But this way of consider
ing the general problem of knowledge belongs to a later age
than Spinoza's, and it is useless to complain of him for not
having formally anticipated it. Anything, then, which is sus
ceptible of explanation, derivation, or subordination to some
thing outside it, is not Substance in Spinoza's meaning.

Attribute is that which is perceived as constituting the

1 Eth. ii. 44.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 163

nature of Substance ; and to understand Spinoza's view we
must dismiss from our mind the common use of the term. If
we think of Spinoza's Substance as distinct from and under
lying the Attributes, as being, so to speak, at the back of the
Attributes and guarded by them against any closer approach,
we shall certainly go wrong. Attribute is perceived, not as
merely belonging to Substance, but ' as constituting its nature.'
^Substance is indeed manifested in the Attributes, but there'
is not an inaccessible reality behind the manifestations. The
manifestations are themselves the reality ; Substance consists
of the attributes and has no reality other than theirs. As for
the suggestion that the perception of the understanding in
this respect may be illusory, in other words that the reality of
things is unknowable, it is one which Spinoza was incapable
of entertaining : it is wholly foreign to his thought, and I
submit that it ought so to be to all sound thinking. This is
not the place to enter on a general metaphysical discussion ;
but I may be permitted to say here shortly, by way of clear
ing the ground, that to me it amounts to a contradiction in
terms to speak of ' unknowable existence ' or ' unknowable
reality ' in an absolute sense. I cannot tell what existence
means, if not the possibility of being known or perceived.
This position, implicitly contained in Spinoza's definitions, was
explicitly taken up, and, as I venture to think, in the main
conclusively established, by Berkeley. Since his time philo
sophy has done something, and science much, to confirm his
work. But I do not know that the point will bear much
labouring ; it is too fundamental. One accepts it, or one does
not, and the whole view of the character and possibilities of
metaphysic depends on this primary decision. For the pre
sent, however, our chief concern is not. to defend Spinoza's
conception, but to ascertain what it actually was. And I
think there can hardly be a reasonable doubt that for Spinoza
to exist and to be intelligible were all one. Substance is not
an Unknowable, Noumenon, or Ding an sick, nor are the

M 2

1 64 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Attributes forms imposed on it by the human mind. Yet,
when we have settled what the Attributes are not, there is no
small difficulty in finding an unexceptionable term to describe
what they are. They are not forms of Substance, as we have
seen ; neither are they operations or energies, for that also
would make Substance prior to and distinct from them ; and
much less are we to be misled by any false analogy to Neo-
Platonic fancies of emanations and the like. The least un
satisfactory word I can suggest is aspect, which has already
been used by modern writers with virtually the same meaning.
Attribute, as Spinoza himself said in the earlier form of the
definition, is Substance itself as known and identified by the
understanding. The division of attributes, as far as human
knowledge goes, is the ultimate division of experience into
subjective and objective, or mental and material. We know
a world of things extended in space, to the understanding of
which, so far as we can understand them, the laws of matter
and motion are our sole and sufficient guide. This is, in
Spinoza's language, Substance perceived under the Attribute
of Extension. Again, we know a world of thoughts, feelings,
mental events, or however we may call its elements, to which
the notions of space and extension are wholly inapplicable ;
we cannot ascribe mass to a sensation, or resolve a thought
into atoms. And this is the domain of Substance perceived
under the Attribute of Thought.

It is to be observed that, inasmuch as Attribute is defined
by reference to intellect, and Thought is itself an attribute,
Thought appears to be in a manner counted twice over.

N Likewise Extension and Thought, although they are the only

Attributes we have anything to do with, are in Spinoza's view

only two out of an infinite number. But the difficulties that

arise on both these points are better postponed for a while.

As for the modes or affections of Substance, they are

/ nothing else than particular things. Every material object is
a mode of Extension, arid every feeling is a mode of Thought.

THE NATURE OF THINGS^ 165

It will as a rule be found a help to the apprehension of
Spinoza's meaning to read thing for mode ; remembering that
any aggregate whatever, within the limits of the same Attri
bute, may be taken as a single thing ; and that this extends
even to the whole material universe, and to the sum of all
thought. The whole contents of any Attribute are regarded
by Spinoza as an. in finite mode. But his acceptance of motion
as a real thing of constant quantity compelled him to regard
Motion as an infinite Mode by itself, and more ' immediately
produced by God,' or dependent on the very nature of the
attribute of Extension, than Matter ; since the sensible world,
' facies totius universi,' is not matter alone, but matter diver
sified by motion. This peculiarity has no sensible effect on
the general bearings of Spinoza's philosophy.1

The definition of God as ' substance consisting of infinite
attributes, whereof every one expresses eternal and infinite
being,' brings us face to face with Spinoza's metaphysical im
agination in the full extent of its daring. In the eleventh
proposition of the First Part of the ' Ethics ' he formally de
monstrates that this ' absolutely perfect being ' exists. Most
people are content nowadays, when they set about explaining
the nature of things, to assume that there is something to be
explained ; and if that were all, Spinoza's proof that the
universe exists might be left aside as an historical curiosity.
But there is more than one reason for dwelling on it. Spinoza
follows in form, and even in language, the examples made
familiar by theologians, and philosophers under theological
influence or pressure, who had undertaken to prove the exist
ence of a being apart from and above the universe. He does
not simply break off from theological speculation and seek to
establish philosophy on an independent footing ; he seems
intent on showing that theological speculation itself, when

1 The doctrine of the Infinite Modes is given in Eth. I. 21-23, Dut in such
general language that it would be unintelligible without the parallel passages in
Ep. 66 and elsewhere. See p. 108, 152 above.

j66 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

reason is once allowed free play, must at last purge itself of
anthropomorphism and come round to the scientific view.
Spinoza does not ignore theology, but provides an euthanasia
for it; and there is every reason to believe that in so doing
he faithfully reproduces the development of his system in his
own mind. Hence his work has a peculiar fascination for
liberal-minded theologians, and from the very first has excited
the violent abhorrence of the more orthodox ones. There
were similar grounds, as was remarked in our first chapter,
for the exceeding bitterness of the opposition encountered by
the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.'

If Spinoza swallows up speculative theology in philosophy,
he is equally determined not to confine the range of philoso
phical construction within the bounds of human experience.
Rejecting the theological conception of the universe as created
and governed by a magnified human despot, which indirectly
makes man the measure of all things, Spinoza was not more
willing to accept the contrary form of anthropomorphism
which admits no reality of things outside what is known to
ourselves. And he was determined withal not to give up the
substance and reality of the knowledge we have in the search
for some other imagined reality which might peradventure
turn out a shadow. Thus encompassed with dangers, he
escaped from them by a flight of speculation as daring and
splendid as any that human intellect has achieved. The God
of Spinoza is not merely Substance, but ' Substance consisting
of infinite attributes.' The infinity of attributes is deduced
from the perfection and reality of Substance. Perfection and
reality are with Spinoza synonymous terms.1 Whatever exists
must exist as much as it can ; and that whose nature is to
exist, or which exists of itself, is under no possible restraint
either internal or external which could set bounds to its exist
ence. Therefore it will exist with infinite reality, in every
possible way, and we must ascribe to it infinite attributes.
1 Eth. 2, def. 6.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 167

The existent universe, though not the world accessible to a
particular order of finite minds, must include every possible
consequence of infinite being, and there is no real distinction
between the actual and the possible.

Let us endeavour to put this in a shape more congenial
to modern habits of thought. We know the world under
the Attributes or aspects of extension and thought, and in
each kind the sum of reality appears to be inexhaustible.
Our world consists of modes of extension associated with
modes of thought : the two orders of events being, as Spinoza
sets forth later, strictly correlated and parallel. But we have
no right to assume that this is the only world : for this would
be to set bounds to infinite being. How can we tell what
other aspects existence may not have to intelligence other
than ours ? We can conceive, though not imagine, relations
of thought to other worlds analogous to those which we per
ceive between thought and extension. For all we can ever
know there may be endless aspects of existence unimaginable
to us. That which to the modern thinker appears as a specu
lative possibility, forbidding us to affirm that human know
ledge is everything, appeared to Spinoza as a positive necessity,
and he affirmed, the infinity of Attributesjas required by the
perfection of Substance. Things must exist, not only after the
manner in which they are manifested to us, but in every
manner which infinite understanding can conceive. Yet that
which we do perceive is not a part or fraction of the reality ;
for the Attributes unknown to us express, as Spinoza says, in
infinite ways the very same reality of things which we know,
or may conceivably know, under the Attributes of Thought
and Extension. In each Attribute the same order and
sequence is repeated in the aspect or expression proper to
that Attribute. Differing in kind, they are strictly homologous
and parallel in form. A geometrical illustration may help
us to understand Spinoza's conception. Let any one of the
Attributes be likened to an infinite plane, and let figures be

1 68 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

drawn all over the plane. The figures may then stand for the
Modes, or particular things, comprised under that Attribute :
and the whole plane itself, considered as a figured surface,
will represent an infinite Mode. Now let us suppose an in
finite number of other planes to be taken, and figures to be
drawn on them similar and similarly situated to those drawn
upon the first. Further, we suppose the figures to vary con
tinuously, and the variations to be similar and correspondent
in all the planes, so that at all times the configuration of all the
planes is identical. Intelligent beings living on one of these
planes and confined to two dimensions could have no imagina
tion of any surface outside their plane, which however is to
observers furnished with normal organs of sense in three di
mensions only one plane arbitrarily selected out of an infinite
number as the * plane of the paper.' Yet such beings might
conceive, though they could not imagine, the configurations of
which they had experience as being repeated on infinite other
planes inaccessible to their faculties. This is the sort of cor
respondence assumed by Spinoza to hold good between all
the Attributes. But the illustration is imperfect in this, that
there is no reason in the nature of the supposed case why the ^
figures on different planes should not be dissimilar : whereas '
in Spinoza's view of the universe the corresponding modes in
different attributes are not different things at all, but the same
thing ' differently expressed.' Thus there is no room for diver
gence ; there are not infinite and similar orders of things
running parallel to one another, but one order in infinite ma
nifestations. The order itself is the same in every "aspect,
somewhat as in the symbolical operations of mathematics the
development of a function remains constant in form, whatever
values we may give to the variables.

The parallelism of the Attributes includes as a particular
case the exact correspondence of body and mind, to which
the Cartesian school was already committed, though its
founder tried to effect a compromise with prevailing notions

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 169

by means of the doctrine of animal spirits : a doctrine which,
as we have seen, was followed by Spinoza himself in his earlier
essay * Of God and Man.' By the time he wrote the ' Ethics '
he was convinced that such a compromise was untenable ; and
there can be little doubt that his final and complete accept
ance of the correlation of mind and body rested on grounds
which we should now call scientific, the same in fact on
which the most eminent of recent and living psychologists
have come to the same conclusion. Hence, while the infinity '
of the Attributes was determined by a supposed necessity /
of speculation, the parallelism which constitutes the original ;
and peculiar feature of this part of Spinoza's system appears ,
to be an extension of the parallelism already fixed in Spinoza's
view of the world of human experience as a necessity of
scientific thought. It is to be observed that without this
feature the Infinite Attributes would be a mere formless vision
of unseen worlds, such as have abounded both before and
since the time of Spinoza. So that even when Spinoza goes
farthest in overleaping the bounds of experience, it is still
the scientific element that gives consistence and definition to
his work.

We may now see that although nothing outside Extension
and Thought can affect human knowledge or impeach its
reality, the Infinite Attributes are not merely ornamental.
Spinoza's purpose is to keep a clear course between
materialism on the one hand and subjective idealism on the
other. He makes extension and thought equally real, and
co-ordinate not only with one another but with infinite
other aspects of existence. Thus the system is obviously not
materialism.1 It is no less remote from the subjective
idealism which turns the universe into a phantom. It is

1 Except in the nomenclature of certain modern writers, who signify by
materialist (as appears by their usage, though they do not give themselves the
pains so to define it) any one who does not admit some dogma, generally that of
free-will, affirmed by the particular writer to be essential to religion and morality.

170 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

proof even against the objections to which Berkeley's idealism
is exposed. Professor Huxley, in his essay on Berkeley, sup
poses a piano to be conscious of sound and of nothing else.
' It would become acquainted with a system of nature entirely
composed of sounds, and the laws of nature would be the
laws of melody and of harmony ; ' and, having no conception
of any other sort of existence, it might reason thus : ' All my
knowledge consists of sounds and the perception of the
relation of sounds ; now the being of sound is to be heard ;
and it is inconceivable that the existence of the sounds I
know should depend upon any other existence than that of
the mind of a hearing being.' But we know that the exist
ence of these sounds requires, besides the mind of a hearing
being, the structure of wood and metal which makes the
visible and tangible piano, and a musician to play upon it.1
So that the Berkeleian piano would be mistaken, though by
the hypothesis it could never have proof of its error. Now
let us vary the supposition and make it reason after Spinoza's
manner. It would then say something of this kind : Existence
is manifest to me in Thought and Sound : these are the At
tributes under which I perceive the reality of things, and each
is infinite and perfectly real in its own kind. But I may not
assume that these are the only possible aspects of existence,
though they are the only ones that fall within my apprehen
sion. The fulness of things must be infinite in infinite kinds,
and must be expressed in infinite wa^s_besides these two of
'Thought and Sound. 'The auditory consciousness of our
speculative piano ' would thus vindicate the reality of its per
ceptions as far as they went, or the identity of esse and percipi
within the supposed limits of its faculties, and yet its specu
lation would leave ample room for the existence of the
material piano, the musician, and the world in general.
Substitute Extension for Sound in Professor Huxley's parable

1 Critiques and Addresses, p. 349.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 171

as thus varied, and we have Spinoza's view of the relation of
human knowledge to the totality of existence.

The first remark on Spinoza's hypothesis that occurs to a
modern reader, being probably the last that would have
occurred to any of his contemporaries, is that by the nature
of the case it is incapable of verification. But perhaps that
objection is not conclusive ; for it is at least open to grave
doubt whether any metaphysical hypothesis can be brought
to this test, or can have, to use the Kantian phrase, any
other than a regulative value. Leaving this point aside, we
have to see whether Spinoza's theory is consistent in itself,
and gives a consistent interpretation of our actual experience.
And, notwithstanding its apparent symmetry, closer inspec
tion shows that the difficulties are insuperable. Spinoza
found himself, indeed, unable to resolve the doubts pro
pounded by Tschirnhausen, whose letters will compare very
favourably with most of the modern criticism on the ' Ethics.'
Man is, as we know by all our experience, an extended and
thinking being, and nothing else. But, according to Spinoza,
the reality of everything is expressed in infinite ways. Mind
and body are only two expressions or aspects out of an in
finite number: how then do these two come to be exclusively
associated ? Why are the other Attributes unknown to us ?
And are we to suppose those Attributes to constitute other
worlds perceived by finite creatures who have no notion of
Extension ? l Such is the effect of Tschirnhausen's first set
of questions. The answer he received 2 failed to satisfy him ;
and in truth it is not only obscure, but seems to evade the
main difficulty. Spinoza says that the human mind knows
only thought and extension, because it is nothing else than a
mode of thought associated with a particular body or mode
of extension (idea corporis actu existentis). But the difficulty
is just to see how this dual association is to be reconciled with

1 Ep. 65, 2 Ep. 66.

172 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND .PHILOSOPHY.

the symmetrical co-ordination of all the Attributes. Tschirn-
hausen returned, courteously but stoutly, to the attack.

* I well perceive/ he says, ' that in your system the universe is
one, and not many ; but it is no less clear from the very passage
to which you refer me l that it is expressed in infinite ways, and there
fore that the being of every single thing is so expressed.

'Whence it seems to follow that though the modification con
stituting my mind and the modification constituting my body be one
and the same, yet that modification is expressed in infinite ways ; once
under thought, again under extension, thirdly under an attribute of
God to me unknown, and so on to infinity ; for the attributes of God
are infinite, and the order and connexion of the modifications is, as
I understand, the same in all. Hence arises this question : why the
mind— which embodies (repraesentat) a certain modification, which
modification is expressed, not only in extension, but in infinite other
ways — why, I say, the mind perceives that modification only as ex
pressed in extension, (that is, the human body) and no other expression
of it under other attributes ? ' 2

Spinoza's reply, apparently only a part of the letter in
which it was given, is so brief that it may be translated in
full.

' In answer to your objection I say that, although every particular
thing is expressed in infinite ways in the infinite understanding of
God, yet those infinite ideas whereby it is expressed cannot constitute
one and the same mind of a particular thing, but constitute infinite
minds ; inasmuch as these infinite ideas have severally no connexion
among themselves, as I have explained in the aforesaid scholium to
Prop. 7, Part 2 of the Ethics, and appears from Prop. 10, Part i. If
you will sufficiently apply yourself to these, you will see that no
difficulty remains.' 3

Spinoza seems to say that every Mode of every Attribute
other than Thought has a several mind or modification of
thought to itself. Even the intellectus absolute infinitus appears
to be manifold, so that eachjnfinite mode of thought is appro
priated to one Attribute only, and they are infinite in number.
1 Eth. ii. 7, schol. 2 Ep. 67. » Ep. 68v . ^

n.3

THE NATURE OF THINGS.

The result is that the modes of Thought are numerically
equal to the modes of all the other Attributes together ; in
other words, Thought, instead "of being co-equal with the
infinity of other Attributes, is infinitely infinite, and has a pre
eminence which is nowhere explicitly accorded to it.1 But if
we go back to the definition we find that this pre-eminence
has all the while been implied. For Attribute is * that which
understanding perceives concerning substance as constituting
the essence thereof.' Thus the ground is cut from under the
apparent equality of the Attributes ; and, though the system
escapes the snares of subjective idealism, it does not escape
idealism altogether. In order to judge Spinoza's attempt
rightly, we must face the question whether such an escape
was possible at all. If, as I think, his failure was due not to
any want of philosophical power or ingenuity, but to the
nature of the problem itself, it will be no mere exercise of
historical curiosity to undertake a narrower scrutiny of his
conception. Before we do this, one or two other difficulties
may be mentioned. In a continuation of the correspondence
already referred to, Tschirnhausen calls on Spinoza to show
how the existence and variety of extended things is to be
deduced a priori from the Attribute of extension. It is not
very clear whether Spinoza thought himself bound to meet
such a challenge or not ; at all events he was not ready with
an answer.2 If we regard his metaphysic as an attempt not
only to interpret human experience as it is, but to demon
strate that it must be what it is, Tschirnhausen's question
was, as Trendelenburg says, a shot into the white. But it
loses all significance if we treat the system as in truth rest
ing on a foundation of empirical facts, and professing not to
construct the world a priori, but only to make the world in
telligible. And this we are entitled to do for our present

1 Cf. Erdmann, Grundriss der Gesch. der Philosophic, § 272, 5, 6 (vol. ii.
pp. 55-6i).

2 Epp. 71, 72.

174 StoNOZAtJIIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

purposes, though Spinoza himself might not have been con
tent to accept such a limitation of his aims. There are still,
however, other stumbling-blocks. It is part of Spinoza's theory
that everything possible must actually exist j1 and the objec
tion that it ought all to exist at once, or else it must be
shown why one thing should exist before another, is not ade
quately met by saying that duration in time is only a relative
conception in finite minds. The same principle has yet
another strange consequence. Spinoza had, of course, no
suspicion that the properties of Extension could be conceiv
ably different from those assumed in ordinary geometry, and
verified in all our experience as far as verification has gone.
But modern geometers have shown that such differences are
perfectly conceivable, and that an indefinite number of con
sistent geometrical systems may be framed with axioms
contradicting in various ways those of Euclid : and this in
the range of three dimensions, without any reference to the
more knotty question whether space of more than three
dimensions is conceivable or not. So that a thoroughgoing
Spinozist, could such an one be found at the present day,
would have to believe that all conceivable geometries are
realized in as many worlds of extension in three dimensions,
presumably with varied dynamical laws to match ; and if he
believed space of more than three dimensions to be conceiv
able, he would also have to believe in infinite worlds of in
finite dimensions as actually existing. Besides all this, he
would have to suppose corresponding modifications running
through the infinite parallel series of all the other Attributes.
One may doubt if even the boldest metaphysician of modern
times, or the thinker most eager to find room for the free
play of a constructive philosophy untrammelled by the con
ditions of experience, would care to take upon himself such a
burden of unseen worlds as this.

Let us now turn to the main point of Spinoza's implicit
1 Eth. i. 1 6.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 175

idealism. What is the conclusion to which it really points ?
What would Spinoza have done if he had not been uncon
sciously hampered by a remnant of Cartesian dualism? We
have to observe that each Attribute is complete in itself : the
possibility of mutual interference is rigorously excluded. The
perception of things as extended is not a relation between
the extended thing and the perceiving mind, for they are in
commensurable. Every extended thing has its correlate in
Thought, whether that correlate is part of a conscious mind
or not ; and when it is a perception in a conscious mind,
the perception is a mode of Thought and nothing else. And
the thing correlated to the perception is not the object per
ceived, but the organism of the perceiving subject. The
series of ideas or modes of Thought is whole and continu
ous ; no other Attribute has any part in it. How then can
we say that Thought perceives Extension ? or what ground
have we for making Extension co-ordinate with Thought,
and in some way, which nevertheless is not causation,
necessary to its manifestations ? Putting out of sight the
supposed a priori necessity for an infinity of Attributes, let
us assume Extension and all its modes to be blotted out of
existence. Thought and its modes will by the hypothesis
remain unaffected ; every mental correlate of a material fact
will be precisely what it was before ; the psychical order of
things, ordo et connexio idearum, will be unaltered. In other
words, there will be no effect on the perceptions which take
place in any mind, and though Extension be annihilated as
an independent Attribute, no thinking being will miss it.
The difference would be sensible only to an infinite intelli
gence placed as a spectator outside the universe and all its
Attributes ; but such an intelligence we are forbidden to
suppose, for the universe can have nothing outside it. The
same reasoning applies to all the other unknown Attributes.
Hence all the Attributes except Thought are really super
fluous : and Spinoza's .doctrine, when thus reduced to its

1 76 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

simplest terms, is that nothing exists but thought and its
modifications. Feeling, or something commensurable with
L Feeling, is the only unit and measure of reality. The ulti
mate elements of thought are not merely correlated with the
ultimate elements of things ; they are the elements of things
themselves. For, when the principle of continuity is once
admitted, there is no need to assume any other. And this
view, strange as it may seem at first sight, may be arrived at by
divers ways. It may be reached even through the notion of a
thing-in-itself or substratum of phenomena; and Kant was on
the very point of thus reaching it, but left it aside. Accept
ing the alleged necessity for a substratum, noumenon, or
whatever else it may be called, to support our phenomenal
experience, we must admit that of the nature of this substra
tum, as it is in itself, we know nothing whatever. Therefore
1 the substratum may as well be of the nature of mind as any
thing else. But mind is the one sort of real existence of
which we have direct experience ; it is that which is known
in conscious feeling. And, seeing that a known kind of
existence will satisfy the conditions required of the substra
tum, we have no occasion to postulate other unknown kinds.
Indeed, the law of economy forbids us thus to multiply
entities without need. Kant's authority, no doubt, is against
this last conclusion ; for he deliberately refused to proceed to it.
His reasons, however, were not strictly scientific, as they are
inseparable, historically if not formally, from his determina
tion to reserve an inaccessible world of things-in-themselves
as a field 1 for the exercise, assumed to be indispensable, of a
Practical Reason whose demands could not be satisfied in the

region of real knowledge. But Kant's own language on the
subject is too important to be omitted : I give it accordingly
in a free translation : —

' It has been proved that bodies are only phenomena of our out-
1 Or might one say playground ? Spielraum, at any rate, is an innocent term.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 177

ward sense, not things in themselves. Accordingly we may affirm
that our thinking self is not bodily in this sense, that, being conceived
as an object of the inner sense, it cannot, so far as it is a thinking
thing, be an object of outward sense or a phenomenon in space. In
other words, thinking things as such can never occur among outward
phenomena ; we can have no outward perception of their thoughts,
consciousness, desires, &c. ; for all this is the domain of the inward

sense

' But though extension, impenetrability, cohesion and motion, in
short everything we obtain exclusively through the outward sense,
cannot be or contain thought, feeling or the like, which in no case can
be objects of outward perception ; yet the something which underlies
the outward phenomena, and so affects our sense as to furnish it with
the notions of space, matter, form, &c. — this something, I say, con
sidered as noumenon, might well be the subject of thoughts, though
we obtain from it through the outward sense no perception of ideas,
will or the like, but only of space and its modifications. This some
thing, whatever it be, has in itself none of the qualities of matter, such
as extension, impenetrability and the like; for statements about these
qualities are statements about our perceptions. But the qualities
proper to the inner sense, namely, ideas and thought, may be ascribed
to it without contradiction. . . . Matter is complex as a phenomenon,
but only as a phenomenon : and I am free to assume that it is in
itself simple, and that the substance which to our outward sense is
extended is in itself accompanied by thoughts capable of being re
presented in consciousness by an inward sense of its own. In this
way the same thing that in one aspect is called bodily would in
another be a thinking being, of which we could not perceive the
thought, but could perceive the signs of it in the phenomenon. Then
we should no longer say that only souls think, assuming soul to be a
special kind of Substance ; we should say, with common speech, that
men think, in other words that the same thing which as an outward
phenomenon is extended is inwardly or in itself a Subject, which is not
composite, but which is simple and thinks.' *

Kant, however, threw out this hypothesis only for a special
purpose, and did not pursue it. The closeness of the approach
to Spinoza, of which Kant was probably not aware, is most
striking ; and the suggestion differs only in one point from

1 Kritik der r. V. I st ed. Kr. des zweiten Paralogismus der transsc. Psychalogit,
pp. 287-8, Rosenkr., 304-6, Kehrbach {in Universal-Bibliothek}.

i;8 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

the result which follows, as above pointed out, from develop
ing the implicit idealism of Spinoza's theory of the Attributes.
The difference is that Kant assumes the ideal or psychical
thing-in-itself, or rather substitute for the thing-in-itself, to be
a simple subject or monad. In Spinoza's system, on the other
hand, as well as in the simplified form of it here proposed, the
ultimate fact is not only represented, but adequately repre
sented, by the phenomenon. The inward fact, or mode of
thought, corresponds point for point with the outward fact, or
mode of extension, and is complex in the same proportion. We
must remember, however, that the inner and the outer world
are not really different and parallel, but one and the same world
under two aspects. This, indeed, is expressly and repeatedly
stated by Spinoza. The process of criticism we have just
gone through, supposing it to be legitimate, does not affect
the substantial and working value of Spinoza's metaphysic.
The effect is only to strip it of brilliant but dangerous orna
ments, and lay open the speculative ground on which it really
stands. How Spinoza uses his metaphysical conception as a
groundwork for psychology, and with what success, we shall
see in due time.

Jacobi, who only half understood Spinoza, made the ex
traordinary statement that no man may profess to understand
him so long as he finds a single line of the ' Ethics ' obscure.
The saying is one of those which produce a cheap effect by
reckless disregard of the real difficulties. Lessing and Goethe
knew better. And as to more recent philosophers and critics,
it is hardly too much to say that no two of them have under
stood the metaphysical principles of the ' Ethics ' in precisely
the same manner. This being so, I am far from claiming or ex
pecting general acceptance for the interpretation above given ;
I am content if I have made it intelligible. On the other hand
the bearing of Spinoza's principles in their application to human
nature is clear enough, and I do not know that his practical
results have ever been found obscure except by those who

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 179

were determined not to understand, though opinions differ as
widely as possible as to their correctness and value. Whether
the criticism of the purely speculative part be found interest
ing depends on one's belief or taste as to metaphysics in
general. The reader who thinks metaphysics an impossibility
or a useless luxury will probably have quitted me several
pages back. For those who remain it may be worth while to
sum up the criticism in a more technical form than I have yet
allowed myself. Spinoza's Attributes are in effect defined as
objects, or rather as objective worlds. I?ut the general form
of the definitipn,disguises the all-important fact that the world
of Thought, and that alone, is subjective and objective at once.
The intellect which perceives an Attribute as ' constituting
the essence of Substance,' itself belongs to the Attribute of
Thought. Thus, if we push analysis further, we find that
Thought swallows up all the other Attributes ; for all conceiv
able Attributes turn out to be objective aspects of Thought
itself. Spinoza does indeed return, but too late, to the double
aspect of Thought : l and the formal part of his system re
mains a magnificent attempt at an impossible symmetry of
the universe, in which thought vainly struggles to escape from
its own fundamental conditions, and to conquer new worlds
beyond the inexorable boundaries of experience.

It has been seen how great a part is played by infinity in
the system ; we have Attributes, infinite in number and in their
several kinds, infinite Modes, and the like. It is evidently
material to know what precise meaning was attached by
Spinoza to the term. The explanation is partly given in the
' Ethics : ' but we have to look chiefly to the letter to Dr.
Meyer where, in answer to his friend's inquiries, Spinoza dis
cusses the problem. He incidentally sets forth his view of
other metaphysical conceptions which, though secondary and
auxiliary, are of great importance. After a complimentary
introduction Spinoza proceeds thus (Ep. 29) : —

1 Eth. ii. 20, 21, 43.

N 2

I So SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

1 The question of the infinite has always been considered very
difficult, nay inexplicable, by those who have handled it, because
they have not distinguished between that which is concluded to be
infinite by its own nature, that is, by virtue of its definition, and that
which is without limits by virtue not of its essence but of its cause '
(in modern language, between that which cannot be conceived as
finite, and that which as a matter of fact is indefinite in quantity) ;
' again they have not distinguished between a thing called infinite
from having no limit, and a thing whose parts cannot be measured
or expressed by any number, though a greatest and a least magnitude
of the thing itself can be assigned ; finally, because they have not
distinguished between that which we can only understand but not
imagine, and that which we can as well imagine as understand. Had
they attended, I say, to these points, they would never have been
overwhelmed by such a crowd of difficulties. For then they would
have clearly understood what kind of infinite quantity is not capable
of having or being divided into parts, and what without any contradic
tion is so. They would likewise have understood what kind of
infinite may without any repugnance be greater than another infinite,
and what kind may not be so conceived, as will plainly appear from
what I shall presently say/

He shortly recapitulates his technical use of the terms
substance, mode, eternity, and duration. Duration, he says, is
a term applicable only to the existence of particular things
or modes. To substance belongs eternity, 'that is, infinite
faculty (fruitionem) of existence or being.' When we con^
sider the existence and duration of particular things with
regard to those things only, and apart from the order of
nature, we may freely conceive it as bounded, greater or less,
and divided into parts, without in any way contradicting
our conception of the thing. But eternity and substance
cannot be conceived as limited : therefore if we seek to apply
the conceptions of limit and measure to them the principal
conception is already gone.

* Wherefore they talk idly, not to say madly, who think extended
substance to be made up of parts or bodies really distinct from one
another, . . . and all that heap of arguments with which philosophers
commonly go about to show that extended substance is finite falls to

THE NATURE' OF THINGS. 181

pieces of itself. In the same case are others who, having persuaded
themselves that a line is made up of points, have succeeded in find
ing many arguments to show that a line is not infinitely divisible.1

' Now if you ask why we are by nature so prone to treat extended
substance as divisible, I answer, because quantity is conceived by us /
in two manners : to wit, by abstraction or superficially, as it is present
to us in imagination through the senses, or in its quality of substance,
which can be done only by the understanding. So that if we con-\
sider quantity as it is in the imagination (which is the common and
easy way), it will be found divisible, finite, made up of parts, and
manifold. But if we consider substance as it is in the understanding,
and the thing is considered as it is in itself (i.e. as Substance ; for only
Substance is in itself} ' which is exceedingly difficult, then, as I have
at former times sufficiently shown you, it will be found infinite,,
indivisible, and single.

' Again, from the fact that we can assign bounds to duration and
quantity at our pleasure (that is, when we conceive quantity ab
stractedly, apart from Substance, and separate duration in our thought
from the manner of its derivation from eternal things), there arise time
and measure ; time being conceived in order to determine duration,
measure in order to determine quantity, so that we may most
conveniently represent them in imagination. Then from the fact that
we separate the affections of substance from substance itself and
reduce them to classes for the like convenience of our imagination,
there arises number, whereby we determine the same. Whence it is
plainly to be seen that measure, time, and number are nothing else
than ways of thinking, or rather of imagining.2 Therefore it is no
wonder that all who have attempted to understand the course of
nature by means of notions of this kind, and those too ill under
stood, have so marvellously entangled themselves that at last they
could find no escape but by breaking all bounds and committing
themselves to absurdities beyond measure.'

Hence the attempt to explain the ideas of substance,
eternity, or the like, which belong purely to the understand-

1 Cf. Eth. i. 15, schol.

2 Cf. Cogit. Met. part i. c. I, §4. ' Ad rem deinde explicandam etiam modos
cogitandi habemus, determinando scilicet earn per comparationem ad aliam. Modi
cogitandi quibus id efficimus vocantur tempus, numerus, mensura, et si quae
adhuc alia sunt. Horum autem tempus inservit durationi explicandae, numerus
quantitati discretae, mensura quantitati continuae : ' and part ii. c. 4.

182 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

ing, by means of conceptions which are mere ' aids of the
imagination,' is necessarily futile. It is like applying the in
tellectual tests of sanity and insanity to acts of pure imagina
tion (nihilo plus agit quam si det operam ut sua imaginatione
insaniat). Even finite things cannot be rightly understood if
we confound their reality with these 'aids of the imagination.'
For instance, if one confounds duration with measurable
time, and goes about to divide it into parts, it is impossible to
understand the lapse of time. To bring an hour to an end,
half the hour must first pass, then half of the residue, then
half of the next remainder, and so on without end : —

' Wherefore many who are not used to distinguish abstractions
from reality have made bold to assert that duration is compounded
of instants, and so have fallen into Scylla in flying from Charybdis.
For it is all one to compound duration out of instants and to make
number by adding up noughts.'

We have here, it will be observed, Spinoza's answer to the
standing puzzles as to the impossibility of motion, the difficulty
of conceiving matter as either being or not being infinitely
divisible, the contradictions implied in assuming time to have
had or not to have had a beginning, and other catches of that
sort. They are for the most part as old as philosophy itself.
Some were brought into new prominence by Kant, who used
them with extreme ingenuity to set an impassable barrier to
the legitimate operations of human reason, and leave a world
beyond the barrier, not accessible to reason and yet not
inaccessible altogether. In our own time an elaborate mis
understanding of Kant has led to the waste of great powers
on the invention of the so-called Philosophy of the Con
ditioned, which, having barely survived its inventor and first
promoters, may be dismissed as past criticism.

Spinoza's meaning is clearly expressed, but in his own
peculiar vocabulary, and it seems to call for a modern inter
pretation. The nature of things is really continuous ; the

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 183

further we push our inquiries the more we are compelled so to
regard it. But in the common uses of life our imagination
parcels it out for convenience. What we call things are per
sistent groups of our sensations and of relations between
them : and the conception of a thing varies according to our
knowledge and the purpose for which the conception is re
quired. The identity and individuality of things is nothing^,
but the persistence and similarity of relations, and is different^
as we take one or another set of relations. A living body is
the same from day to day in one sense, not the same in
another.

To common apprehension the common objects of sight and
touch are unities complete in themselves and marked off from
the rest of the world ; they are conceived as whole until they
are visibly divided. To the scientific apprehension they are
composite structures built up of molecules, which again are
built up of atoms. For common purposes and many scientific
purposes we regard the internal parts of inanimate bodies as
at rest ; for other scientific purposes we regard them as in con
stant motion. If we take the separate things into which we
have thus parcelled out the world, and try to reconstruct the
unity of the world out of them, we shall naturally fail. For
the unity was broken up in the act of imagining each thing
as separate, and for the purpose of dealing with it separately.
We cannot restore the unity without undoing the dividing
work of the imagination.

As we divide the unity of the world materially by the con
ception of separate things, so we also divide it formally by
those of measurable space and time. Extension is one and
indivisible, but we measure out space by feet and inches, or by
fractions of a millimetre, or by diameters of the earth's orbit,
as may serve the matter in hand. Duration is continuous, but
we first conceive time, as Newton said, to be something con
stantly and equably flowing, and then we take lengths of it, as
it were, and mark them off into years, days, hours, and minutes.

1 84 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Number is involved in the possibility of things being conceived
as separate.1 If we perceive or conceive things and classes of
things as persistent, we can range them, in fact or in mental
representation, side by side. And we find that they still per
sist, however we may alter the arrangement. As Sir James
Stephen has excellently said, we are able to measure and count
things because they stay to be measured and counted. We
take matter occupying a definite part of space, and consider
its motions and the transformations of energy therein involved
apart from the general sum of matter and energy : in Spinoza's
words, ' a modo, quo a rebus aeternis fluit,2 separamus.'

That things do thus cohere and persist, so as to make
measure and number possible, is a universal fact of experi
ence ; indeed there could be no experience without it. Why
it should be so is an impracticable and barren inquiry (except
so far as physical research may succeed in expressing the
more complex properties of matter in terms of less complex
ones), and Spinoza seems to pass it over. But he also seems
to assume that it is not of the nature of understanding as such
to perceive things by the * aids of the imagination.' Extension,
as we have seen, is for Spinoza only one of innumerable aspects
of existence. Intelligences knowing Substance under other
attributes would presumably have their own 'aids of the
imagination/ corresponding to our spatial measurements.
But we also find indications that existence and knowledge
out of time were conceived by Spinoza as possible ; in fact,
he regards all scientific knowledge, the knowledge of things
as necessary or ' sub specie aeternitatis,' as independent of
time. Everything is eternal in its necessary aspect, or as
part of the universal order, and the knowledge of it is eternal
also. An unexpected use is made of this conception in the

Cf. Cogit. Met. part i. cap. 6, § I : « Nos autem dicimus unitaiem ....
tantum modum cogitandi esse, quo rem ab aliis separamus, quae ipsi similes sunt,
vel cum ipsa aliquo modo conveniunt.'

2 Res aeternae = infinite modes = in extension, Motion and Matter. See
p. ,152, above.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 185

last part of the 'Ethics,' of which there is more to be said here
after. In this point, I think, Spinoza was again striving to
transcend experience. The knowledge that something is true
at all times and in all places is not a knowledge out of time :
for the act of knowing or feeling involves change, and change
involves time. Without risking any transcendental proposi
tion we may safely affirm that to the human mind, or to any
mind similarly organized in the world we live in, existence
out of time is not intelligible.

It is material to note that the ' aids of the imagination *
are not represented by Spinoza as forms imposed by the
mind upon things. They arise out of the relation between the
reality of things and the finite mind which is unable to grasp
it in imagination as an unbroken whole. Only the division and
measuring is the work of the mind ; that which we represent
as divided and measured is perfectly real. We do not per
ceive things as extended in space because such is the constitu
tion of our minds ; we perceive them as extended because our
bodies are extended, and we measure and divide extension for
the purpose of comparing our perceptions. Thus Spinoza's
doctrine of time and space cannot be called an anticipation of
Kant's^ He would never have admitted that the material
world is extended only in respect of our perception. Kant
assumes real existences which are unperceivable and unin
telligible. Spinoza denies that any kind of existence is unin
telligible, and also denies that the understanding makes exist
ence what it is. The inner and outer aspects of the world are
for him correlated, co-equal, and co-ordinate. Extension is
made known to consciousness, Thought is made known in
consciousness, but neither is derived from it. On the contrary,
the conscious mind is a highly complex mode of thought,
organized as the body, which is its outward aspect, is organized.
Unorganized matter is correlated with proportionately simpler
groupings of the ultimate elements of thought or feeling ; and
unorganized things are, in accordance with both common

1 86 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

language and the inferences of science, regarded as uncon
scious. At the same time, thought being no less continuous
than extension, or rather their continuity being the same, it
is impossible to fix the point where life begins or leaves off.
Why thought should become conscious and capable of re
flexion when it attains a particular kind and degree of organized
complexity is a question we have no means of answering, and
Spinoza does not attempt to deal with it.

We are here partly anticipating Spinoza's psychology ;
but it may conduce to clearness to exhibit its principles in
immediate connexion with their metaphysical foundation
before we trace their application in the following chapter. It
may also be permitted to anticipate the results so far as to
observe that they show a remarkable coincidence with those
of the modern English or empirical school. Spinoza starts
from premisses which are in appearance dogmatic and trans
cendental, and yet his conclusions are the same that have been
independently reached by inquirers who acknowledged no
source of knowledge but experience. At first sight the coin
cidence is perplexing, but it is not really very difficult to
explain. The psychology of the ' Ethics ' is founded in part on
tacit assumptions of an empirical kind, in part on express
ones which are in form universal and unqualified. But, in
one way or another, much the same positions are assumed by
Spinoza that are accepted by modern science and psychology
as the basis of their work. And since a working hypothesis
must be treated, so long as one works with it, as if it were
absolutely true, there is no reason why the results and even
the processes should not in great measure coincide. Thus
we may well hold that all human knowledge is provisional,
and yet receive as real additions to knowledge, and valid for
practical purposes, doctrines arrived at and asserted in the
first instance without any thought of such reservations.

THE NATURE OF THINGS. 187

NOTE TO CHAPTER V.

The doctrine of the Infinite Modes, one of the most difficult
points in Spinoza's system, has been discussed piecemeal as it came
up under one and another aspect. It may be useful to give a summary
view of the results.

According to the explanation here proposed, the Infinite Modes
are as follows : —

1. In Extension.

a. Motion, conceived after the Cartesian theory as a real

thing and constant in quantity : ' quantity of motion '
being the * momentum ' of modern usage.

b. The material universe or sum of extended things taken

together as one Mode, 'fades totius universi.' This,
being extension modified by motion and rest, is said to be
produced by God not immediately but through the
operation of motion (' mediantibus his primis,' Eth. i. 28,
Schol).

2. In Thought.

a. The sum of all the psychical facts or events correspond

ing to physical motion, « intellectus absolute infinitus.'

b. There should be a sum of all particular modes of

Thought taken as making up one Mode, to correspond to
the * fades totius universi.' But this is not specified by
Spinoza. It might be the * idea Dei in cogitatione ' of
Eth. i. 21, but there it seems not to be distinguished
from ' intellectus absolute infinitus.'

We have then : —

A. Deus (causa absolute proximo).
Extensio. Cogitatio.

B. Res a Deo immediate pro ductae.

Res aeternae f M°tus. Intellectus absolute infinitus.

seu modi infi- I B'. Modi qui et necessario et infiniti existunt, median-

niti (causae tibus his primis.

proximae) „, .

Faeies totius universi. (?) Idea Dei m cogitatione.

C. Res singular cs quaefinitae sunt.

188 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

There would also in theory be modes answering to these in each
of the numerically infinite Attributes to us unknown.

This matter is fully and ably discussed by Ed. Bohmer (Spinozana
ii., Zeitschr. jur Philosophic u. philos. Kritik, vol. 42, pp. 107-116,
Halle 1863) ; his results agree to a considerable extent with mine,
at which I had arrived before seeing his work. He takes Spinoza's
' facies totius universi ' to cover Thought as well as Extension : a
possible but, as it seems to me, not very probable interpretation.

BODY AND MIND.

CHAPTER VI.

BODY AND MIND.

Pensiti aver tu solo provvidenza,

E '1 ciel, la terra, e Paltre cose belle,

Le quali sprezzi tu, starsene senza?
Sciocco, d'onde se' nato tu ? da quelle,

Dunque ci e senno e Dio. Muta sentenza.

Mai si contrasta a chi guida le stelle.— CAMPANELLA.

afire fiporois yepas a\\o n /ne'ifrv
oijre Ofo?s $ ttoivbv ael v6fj.ov ev Siity v/ii/eiV.

CLEANTHES, Hymn to Zeus.

OUR experience manifests to us a series of events in time.
But we no sooner begin to reflect upon it than we find that
the series is not single but double. We commonly speak of
time and space as if they were on exactly the same footing ;
yet there is a distinction of some importance. Whatever
happens in space can be perceived by several observers at
once, so far as the conditions admit of their being conveniently
placed. On the other hand, every one of us is aware of an
immense number of events which can be perceived by nobody
but himself, namely, his own thoughts and feelings. When I
move my hand to write on this paper the motion can be seen
by another person in the room full as well as by myself. The
event is as much a part of his experience as of mine. But
my will and sensations that accompany the act belong to me
and to my experience alone. My companion can see my fingers
on the pen, but he cannot feel the pressure which the pen
exerts on them ; he can follow the movements, but not the
desires which direct them. He can form a notion of my feel-

190 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

ings only by inference from what his own feelings have been
in similar circumstances; immediate experience of them is
wholly beyond his reach.

If we desire to use the word unknowable, we may find a
harmless use for it by saying that the feelings of any one
mind are in this sense unknowable for every other mind.

Each of us has a world of inner experience reserved to
himself alone, and a world of outer experience which he can
share with other men. What is known by inward experience
we call mind, or mental ; what is known by outward experience
is named matter, or material. Modern philosophers have
stated the distinction in another form by the use of the terms
Subject and Object. This has the advantage of fixing the
attention upon the individual and incommunicable character
of the mind's experience. The adjective derived from Subject,
when taken in this technical sense, has passed into common
use as an epithet for feelings or opinions resting on personal
grounds, as distinguished from such as are due to causes found
to operate in a similar way on great numbers of men under
similar conditions. Its correlated term objective is not so familiar
in England, but is freely used by German writers to denote
absence of prejudice and distortion, faithfulness in reproduc
tion, and the like. In this meaning it almost comes round to
the earlier usage, where, as we have already seen in Spinoza's
treatise on Method, a true idea is said to ' repeat objectively '
the reality of the thing signified. Whether the terms have
really done much good in philosophy is, I think, an open
question. They have certainly led to much inelegance of
language and some confusion of thought.

I have assumed that the division of Subject and Object is
identical with that of Mind and Matter ; but it may be
needful to show cause for this, though it is in truth rather a
matter of verbal definition than anything else. Let it be
supposed that the two divisions do not coincide. Then
Matter can be part of the Subject, or Mind part of the Object.

BODY AND MIND. I9r

The former is obviously impossible : for Matter, whatever it
may be, is not part of my feeling. It is assumed to exist
expressly as something outside my feeling. My own body
and organs of sense belong to the objective world no less than
any other bodies. Nor does it fare any better with the latter
alternative. It is true I can reflect upon my own feelings,
but that will not make them something outside me. Like
wise I can think of other persons and their feelings ; but that
will not make their minds objects to me : for I think of their
minds as trains of consciousness and feeling analogous to my
own, but inaccessible to my direct knowledge. They are re
presented, in fact, as imaginary states of my own mind which
it might assume under those other conditions which are
actually present in the case of the other persons I think of.
Therefore no part of Mind can be part of the Object. Thus
we see that the division of individual experience by the
conceptions of subject and object is the same which was
applied to existence by the conceptions of mind and matter.
Now this reasoning tends to show that the divisions are in
themselves unsatisfactory. And we need not be surprised at
it, having seen in the last chapter the metaphysical grounds
for holding the ultimate distinction between mind and matter
to be illusory.

The distinction in human experience is however quite
real ; and mankind, taking their experience as the measure of
existence, have conceived the world of mind and the world of
matter as two sharply defined regions set over against one
another. But the same experience which suggested the divi
sion also shows us a constant connexion. The feelings which
I cannot show to my fellow-man in any but a symbolic and
representative manner, namely, by signs that he can interpret
in terms of his own feelings, are paired with outward events
which are parcel of our common experience. The gulf between
the two worlds is bridged. How the bridge is possible is a
problem which has exercised philosophers of all ages ; and all

I92 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

their endeavours have failed so long as they have not perceived
that the gulf itself is the creature of our own thought. It is
an irrational and hopeless task to inquire how mind acts upon
matter, or matter upon mind. We are trying to find a rela
tion between things which have no common measure. The
strength of an emotion cannot be expressed in foot-pounds,
nor will our sensations of warmth help us to fix the mechanical
equivalent of heat. Either we must give up the problem as a
mystery, or we must invent another mystery to explain it, or
we must say plainly that the common way of stating it is
wrong, and that the distinction on which it is founded is
wrong also.

The Cartesian school saw the difficulty, but still held to
the conception of mind and matter as entities or substances
distinct in themselves. The notion of mutual action was very
nearly, but not quite, rejected by Descartes. He supposed a
communication by means of the '' animal spirits,' the soul
being able to change the direction though not the amount
of their motion. His followers went further, and devised
the theory of Occasional Causes, first propounded in its
completeness by Arnold Geulinx. The correspondence of
body and mind was kept up at every instant by a special
operation of God's power. Material fire could have no
effect of itself on the immaterial mind, but was the occasion
of God's producing in the mind the sensations of light
and heat. This was nothing else than postulating a per
petual miracle ; and the Cartesians not only admitted as
much, but made it a reason for recommending the opinion.
Leibnitz put forward a simpler but not less arbitrary supposi
tion.. His famous doctrine of Pre-established Harmony, as
applied to this particular question, likens mind and matter to
two clocks constructed with absolute perfection of mechanism
and set going at the same rate, so that, while each goes
independently of the other, they keep exact time together.
The metaphor of the two clocks is also found in Cartesian

BODY AND MIND. I93

literature ; l and we might perhaps liken the communication
through the ' animal spirits ' which is admitted in the earlier
Cartesian theory to an electrical connexion such as is now
sometimes used to regulate a distant clock by a standard
timekeeper.

Spinoza's psychology takes the same view of the facts ;
but instead of seeking an artificial explanation for the corre
spondence of two such different things as body and mind, he
boldly says that they are the same thing, and differ only as
aspects. Their parallelism and mutual independence is thus
not a mystery but an elementary fact. To ask why mind
should correspond with matter is like asking why the con
vexity of a curve should answer to the concavity. Let us
now proceed to consider Spinoza's work more in detail, giving
to the reader who may not be acquainted with it the warning
that the second part of the ' Ethics ' is very difficult in form,
and that many of the propositions become clear only by
repeated consideration. The preliminaries however are less
formidable in appearance than those of the first part, and we
need not dwell much upon them. The specific assumptions as
to the nature of man are simple appeals to common experience.2
' Man thinks ; ' ' we are aware of a particular body ' — that is,
each man is aware of his own body — ' as affected in many
ways ; ' ' we are not aware, nor have we perceptions, of any
individual things besides bodies and modes of thought.'

1 * Sicut duobus horologiis rite inter se et ad solis cursum quadratis propter
meram dependentiam qua utrumque ab eadem arte et simili industria constitutum
est. ' Editor's note to Geulinx's posthumous Ethics (ap. Bouillier, Hist, de la
Philosophic Cartesienne, i. 305, 3rd ed.). With Leibnitz there is a universal
harmony between the independent activities of the infinite monads or ' simple sub
stances ' which make up the sentient universe. Of this harmony the correspon
dence between the soul and the bodily organism is a particular case : Monadologie,
§§ 78-81. ' Ce sy steme fait que les corps agissent comme si (par impossible) il
n'y avoit point d'ames, et que les ames Pgissent comme s'il n'y avoit point de
corps, et que tous deux agissent comme si 1'un influoit sur 1'autre.' Leibnitz, like
Spinoza, calls the mind a ' spiritual automaton.' (Theodic. § 403, and elsewhere.)

2 Spinoza himself attaches some importance to this : < Omnia ilia quae sumpsi
postulata vix quicquam continent quod non constet experientia de qua nobis non
licet dubitare.'— Prop. 17, Schol.

i94 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Some further postulates are introduced at a later stage (after
Prop. 1 3) concerning the composite nature of the human frame
and the component parts themselves, and its powers of acting
on and receiving impressions from external bodies.

The human mind, or man as a thinking being, is a mode
of thought, and ' part of the infinite intellect of God ' (Prop. 1 1,
Coroll.). As such it must have its correlate or 'object 'in
extension ; for the same reality of Substance is expressed in
extension as in thought.1 This object is nothing else than
the human body, the existence of which is made known to us
by our experience of its affections (Prop. 13). At this point
occurs a note of great importance, the substance of which is
best given in Spinoza's own words :—

1 Hence we understand, not only that the human mind is united
to the body, but what is to be understood by this union. But no
one can understand this adequately or distinctly unless he first has
adequate knowledge of the nature of our body. For the propositions
hitherto established are very general, and apply no more to man
than to all other individual things ; which, indeed are all endowed
with mind, frniurh in various decrees. For of every thing soever
there is necessarily in God an idea, whereof God is the cause, in
like manner as *>">™» is an ide?. of thg Imman body : and thus what
ever we have said of fo* ^pa 9f the human body must also be said
~77k~^o ^ fYPry<-v.mff pfap At the same time we cannot deny
that ideas differ among themselves as their objects do ' (the relations
among modes of thought are parallel to those among the correspond
ing modes of extension) 'and that one is more excellent than
another, and comprehends more reality ; and therefore in order
to determine wherein the human mind differs from others, and
how it excels them, it is needful for us to know the nature of its
object, that is, the human body. This however I cannot here
explain, nor is it necessary for the purpose of my demonstration.
But this much I will generally say,Jtriat the more any body surpasses
others in its fitness for manifold actions or impressions, the more
doth its mind surpass others in capacity for manifold perceptions ;

1 Prop. T. What becomes of the corresponding modes of the other Attributes ?
This difficulty, which is insoluble on Spinoza's principle of equal co-ordination,
has already been discussed in the last chapter.

195

and the more the actions of a given body depend upon itself alone,
and the less other bodies concur with it in its actions, the more
capable is its mind of distinct understanding../ Hence we can obtain
knowledge of the excellence of one mind above others ; and more
over see why we have but a very confused knowledge of our own
body, and several other matters which I shall in the sequel deduce
from these principles.'

There could not be a more distinct or positive declaration
of the necessity that psychology, if it is to be a serious branch
of scientific inquiry, should go hand in hand with physio
logy, and verify its results, as far as possible, by physiological
observation. Persons who describe Spinoza as a mere dog
matic metaphysician have obviously never read as far as this
Scholium. But to proceed to Spinoza's consequences. One
of the first is that * the idea constituting the human mind, as
it is in itself, is not simple, but compounded of very many
ideas/^ For the human mind is the idea, or correlate in
thought, of an extended body which is known to be very
complex ; and every part of the body must have its corre
sponding idea ; so that the mind is composed of the ideas of
"trie manifold parts that make up the body. In other words,
_the mind is complex precisely as the body is complex. Here
at all events there is no metaphysical assumption in the
popular sense of the term ; nothing about a soul, or an JEgo^
or a simple substance, or an inward assurance of personality.
We must complain of Spinoza, if we complain of him at all,
for not being metaphysical enough. From this we are led
on to the association of ideas, a topic in which Spinoza has
anticipated not only the propositions laid down by modern
psychologists, but the modern manner of handling them.

/The perception of an external object is the state of mind
corresponding to the modification of the bodily organism
produced by that object. \So long as that modification lasts,
so long will the corresponding idea ; in other words, the
external body will be perceived or thought of as present.

o 2

196 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

[""And this will be repeated if the parts of the organism con
cerned are again placed in the same disposition, whether by
the presence of the same object or J3j/__any other accident.
Hence we may imagine things as present when they are not.
Here likewise it is observed that our notion of an external
body is a function of our own organism, and has more to do
with the nature of our own body than with that of the external
one. Thus 'we understand what is the difference between
that idea of Peter which constitutes the reality of Peter's own
mind, and the idea of Peter which is in another man, say in
Paul. For the former directly answers to (explicat) the
reality of Peter's own body, and does not imply existence
except while Peter exists ; the latter indicates rather the dis
position of Paul's body than the nature of Peter, and therefore
while that disposition lasts Paul's mind, though Peter may
not exist, will yet regard him as present to it.' Spinoza is
fully conscious in this place of his double use of the over
worked term idea ; yet elsewhere, as we pointed out in a
former chapter, he appears to mix up the two meanings ; and in
a later proposition (Part 2, Pr. 32) the verbal confusion reaches
its climax. <>TrTe proposition amounts to saying that every
mental state is in one sense true, inasmuch as it really exists.
But to return to the passage immediately before us:Jt j_s_
further noted that imagination is in itself not capable of error.
If the mind imagines a non-existent thing a.s present, but also
knows it not to exist, tHere is nq error, but .a pure activity of
the imaginative power.1 Again, f jf the human body has once
been affected at the same time by two or more bodies, then when
the mind afterwards imagines any one of them, it will there
upon remember the others also.' >2 This is the ground of
memory and association. Memory is defined as ' An associa
tion (concatenatio) of ideas involving the nature of things 4
outside the human body, which arises in the mind according

V Prop. 17, 8cho'\ - Prop. 18.

BODY AND MIND. 197

^p the order_and association of the affections of the human
body.'

1 And hence we further understand why the mind should upon the
thought of one thing fall into the thought of another thing which hath
no likeness with the first. As for example, from thinking upon the word
pomum a Roman will fall to thinking upon the fruit apple, which hath
no likeness to that articulate sound, nor anything common with it,
save that the man's body has often been affected by these two ; that
is, that the man often heard the word pomum when he saw the fruit
itself ; and thus every man will fall from one thought into another, as
the habit of each has ordered the images of things in his body. A
soldier when he sees the footprints of a horse in sand will thereupon
fall to thinking of a horseman, and thence into thoughts of warfare
and the like. But a farmer will fall from thinking of the horse to
thinking of ploughs, fields, and the like \ and thus willjeyery man
fall into this or that course of thought, as he has~B"een accustomed to
join_a.nd_associate the ideas of things in this or that manner/

This contains, though only in outline, all the essentials of
the modern doctrine on the subject.

The nature and limitations of human knowledge are then
further discussed on the same psychological method. ,We
Xjcnow our own bodies only through our ' ideas of the affections
wherewith the body is affected ; ' and we also have a reflective !
knowledge of these ideas, and this is thepnly knowledge which
the mind has of itself.1 Eye_n in the most abstruse act of re- 1
flexion the mental operation is accompanied by the material
series of changes in the organism ; we cannot by any effort
whatever transcend the organic conditions of thought, for they
are the other side of thought itself. _A11 pur perceptions of
external things consist in perceptions of our own body as
modified by them ; but this does not give us accurate know
ledge of the constitution either of our own bodies or of the objects

affecting them. For the things we actually perceive, whether

due to the internal functions of our organism or to impressions

1 Eth. ii. 19-23. As to Spinoza's peculiar way of stating the doctrine of
4 idea ideae, ' cf. p. 133 above.

J98 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY,

on it Irom without, are but limited .sarts.of..extremely complex
physical events extending far beyond our sentient prgans.
And on the whole, 'the human mind, whenever it jperjaeiyes
things after the common order of nature, has not an adequate
knowledge either of itself or of its own body, or of external
bodies^ut only a confused and fragmentary ojie.' ^The mind
is said to ' perceive things after the common order of nature '
when its thoughts are determined by external circumstances,
which with regard to the mind may be called accidental, and
not by its own operation of reasoning.)

'Hence we have but a confused notion of the duration
either of our own body or of external things, for this depends
on the ' common order of nature ; ' and thus we regard all
particular things as contingent and ^perishable ; for to call a
thing contingent and perishable is as much as to say that we
have no adequate knowledge of its duration. Error in general
is explained as the privation of knowledge which accompanies
inadequate or confused ideas. |

' For example, men are mistaken in their opinion of their own
freedom ; which opinion consisteth only in this, that they are con
scious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes whereby they
are determined. So that their idea of freedom is nothing else than
their not knowing any cause of their actions. For when they say
that human actions depend on the will, these are words for which
they have no idea to answer them. What the will is, or how it
moves the body, thereof they all know nothing ; the pretensions of
those who, feigning to know somewhat, devise houses and dwelling-
places for the soul, are either ludicrous or disgusting.' l

Again, our visual impression of the sun's apparent distance
is not altered by knowledge of the real distance. The error
of the common sort is not in the visual impression itself, but
in the ignorance that accompanies it. ' We imagine the sun
as near us, not because we know not its true distance, but
because the present affection of our body involves the nature

1 Prop. 35, Schol.

BODY AND MIND. 199

of the sun only in so far as the same body is thereby affected/
It is to be observed that imagination here stands for the
acquired interpretations of sensation which in ordinary adult
perceptions are not distinguished from the sensation itself,
but which really depend on the representation of many sensa
tions experienced in the past and their various associations and
consequences. The erroneous ideas in a finite mind, however
are in themselves as necessary as the true ones, being part of
the general order of nature. On the other hand there are
ideas in the human mind which are necessarily adequate,
namely ideas of those elements which are common to all
perceptions, or, taking it from the objective side, to the human
body and all bodies affecting it. * Hence it follows that a
mind will be fitted to perceive more things, and to perceive
them adequately, as its body has more in common with other
bodies : ' in other words, the power of gaining knowledge from
the outer world depends on the variety of the organs of sen
sation, and their adaptation to the physical influences by
which they can be affected ; a conclusion which must be
admitted as very just, whatever we may think of Spinoza's
way of demonstrating it. In modern language, his position
amounts to the now familiar statement that sensation is a
function of the organism as affected by some external body.
But the condition of the affected organism does not necessarily
resemble the condition of the affected body, except so far as
they are both material systems in which motion and trans
ferences of energy are going on. Thus neither our sensations
nor the physical events in the organism immediately correlated
with them can be said in any proper sense to resemble the
external objects and events indicated by them. Spinoza's
argument seems to imply further that all men have an
adequate idea of matter and motion ; for these are on his
physical principles the only constituents common to all bodies.
This appears to be another consequence of the ambiguous use
of the word ' idea.' That which is feeling in itself, or to the

2oo SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

inward sense, would be to the outward sense, if it were
accessible, a series of motions in a material organism. And
motion, as such, is everywhere the same, whether occurring in
the organism or outside it. But this carries us no farther as to
the correctness of the information we derive from our senses
concerning the outer world, much less of the conceptions of
matter and motion which we may form by reflexion on our
experience. Because my idea, in the general sense of mental
state, corresponds exactly to a series of physical events in my
brain, it follows riot that I shall frame an adequate idea, in
the sense of a consciously held conception, when I try to
think what matter and motion are. All that I can directly
know is a state of my own feeling. It is only through a long
course of education and experiment that I can interpret any
such state in terms of other people's possible feelings, or, in
other words, proceed from it to a statement about the
accompanying condition of my own organs or the dispositions
of external bodies determining that condition.

Spinoza, however, does not here explain what are the
notions common to all men, or the secondary maxims de-
ducible from them. He refers us for all this to another
treatise, probably the unfinished work on the Amendment of
the Understanding, of which an account has already been
given, and he goes on to his explanation of universals.1 The
limited resources of our organism permit us to form only a
limited number of images. There is a point beyond which
our senses become incapable of perceiving minute differences ;
the various organs of the human body, with all its delicacy of
adaptation, are but rough instruments to observe the bound
less variety of nature withal. We may observe in passing
that Spinoza's statement, which is here partly modernized in
form, is confirmed to the full by the results of modern phy
siology. The overlapping and confusion of many similar
perceptions and the representations of them beget our generic

1 Prop. 40, Schol. 2,

BODY AND MIND. 201

or so-called universal notions. We have seen, for example,
a great number of human beings in the course of life, and
cannot remember all the differences of stature, complexion,
features, and other matters. Every one carries a strong
though not very distinct impression of the points in which
all or most of the several perceptions have agreed, and the
aggregate of these is called by the generic name of man.
Thus one man's general ideas are not exactly like another's ;
they depend in each case on the individual's aptitude for
perceiving and remembering this or that common feature in a
multitude of objects. The crystallographer's idea of diamond
is different from the chemist's, and that again from the
jeweller's.

1 Those who have often admired the stature of men understand by
the name of man an animal of upright stature ; while those who are
accustomed to consider some other attribute will form some other
general imagination of men, as, that man is an animal capable of
laughter, two-legged, without feathers, or rational; and thus in other
cases every one will form universal images of things after the habit of
his body. Wherefore it is no wonder that so many controversies
have arisen among philosophers, who have been minded to explain
things as they are in nature by mere images of things.' l

This leads to a classification of knowledge in three de
grees. The first is opinion or imagination, proceeding from
one's own confused experience or the report of others. In this
class are now included the first and second kinds of know
ledge which we met with in the treatise on the Amendment
of the Understanding (p. 126 above).

The second or reasonable kind is obtained by the posses
sion of common notions (which are necessarily adequate) and
adequate ideas of particular properties of things.

The third, or intuitive kind, ' proceeds from an ade
quate idea of the absolute nature of some attribute of God

1 Prop. 40, Schol. i. Compare Mr. F. Gallon's recent paper on 'Generic
Images,' Nineteenth Century, July 1879.

202 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

to an adequate knowledge of the nature of things.' Our
immediate perception that 6 is to 3 as 2 to I is given as an
instance of it ; but the formidable language of the general
statement is not otherwise explained.

Knowledge of the first kind is precarious ; the second and
third kinds are certain, and are our only means of distinguish
ing truth from error. Then comes the proposition as to the
ultimate test of truth which we have cited in a foregoing
chapter (p. 129).

The rest of the second Part of the Ethics is mainly devoted
to working out the theory of determinism. ' It is of the nature of
reason to consider things not as contingent, but as necessary:'1
it is the work of the imagination to regard them as contingent,
and our notion of contingency arises from the confusion of many
associations, in somewhat the same way that general notions
arise from the confused impression of many particular
experiences. Let a child on a given day see Peter in the
morning, Paul at noon, and Simon in the evening ; then at
the beginning of the next day he will expect the day to run
its course, and will also expect, if nothing occurs to counteract
it, the sight of Peter, Paul, and Simon to be repeated in the
same order ; and the expectation will be strengthened by
repetition of the experience. But if one evening James comes
instead of Simon, the next morning's expectations of evening
will bring with it conflicting images of Simon and James.

( For the boy is assumed to have seen at eventide only one or
the other of them, not both together. With the coming eventide he
will imagine now the one, now the other ; that is, he will imagine
neither of them as certainly, but both as contingently about to be
present. Moreover the wavering of the imagination will be the same
if it is an imagination of things which we consider in the same
manner with reference to time past or present, and accordingly we
may equally regard things as contingent, whether they be referred to a
time present, past, or future.'

1 Prop. 44.

BODY AND MIND. 203

This passage suggests that determinists may turn the tables
on the maintainers of free-will in its popular sense of cause
less choice by their own favourite device of an appeal to the
common use of language. It is said that determinism reduces
to an absurdity our ordinary feelings and forms of speech with
regard to future events : but it is overlooked that we habitually
apply the very same feelings or forms of speech to events
which at the time are unquestionably determined. Nay, we may
believe or positively know that they are determined, so long
as we do not know which of the conceivable determinations
is the one that has occurred. While we await the disclosure
of a parliamentary division list, the result of an examination,
the return of casualties in an action, the account of a friend's
arrival in a distant country, or a hundred other things no less
easily called to mind, our emotions of curiosity, hope, and fear
are but little allayed by the thought that the matter itself is
already decided ; for the source of those emotions is not in
the facts but in our ignorance of them, and we wonder,
speculate, and form provisional imaginations of what we shall
do in this or that event, just as if the event were still in the
future. In familiar language we do not hesitate to couple
hope or fear with the present and even the past tense. ' I
hope you have enjoyed yourself ; ' ' I fear you have got wet : '
it were mere pedantry to replace these by more accurate
phrases. Again, the historian who investigates the actions
and motives of men in the transactions of a past made obscure
by distance, by the conflict of evidence, by the flattering or
violence of partisans, or by the machinations of wrongdoers, is
constantly driven to deal in surmise, contingency, and conjec
ture. Probably, he will say, this was the course of events ; this
was perhaps the reason for such or such a singular action ;
possibly this commonly received account is true, notwith
standing the difficulties attaching to it ; now and then he will
confess (unless he is a historian of the confident sort, who has
a complete explanation for everything) that with his existing

204 SPINOZA ; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

means of information he can only suspend his judgment.
All statements of this kind are statements about our imperfect
~ x knowledge of matters which in truth have been settled once
for all. The fact that events happened somehow and are
past we know ; the manner of it we do not know. Yet we
constantly speak of them as uncertain, finding it useful and
indeed necessary to do so. We say, for example, that
Alcibiades was possibly concerned in the mutilation of the
Hermae, though it is most certain that either he was or he
was not.

There does not appear to be anything in the nature of
reason or of language that should compel one to suppose the
notion of contingency as regards future events to be anything
else than what it undoubtedly is as regards past and present
events ; that is to say, a fiction imposed on us by our limited
means of knowledge. We hope and fear, not because the
events are uncertain, but because we are uncertain ; nor would
a general belief that future events are as certain as past ones,
at least if intelligently held, alter the expectations or conduct
of mankind for any practical purpose. Assuredly it does not
lead to the indifference of fatalism : for a little consideration
will show that fatalism consists, not in believing all events to
be the definite results of definite conditions, but in holding
that the course of events is overruled by an arbitrary power
which so constantly baffles all man's forethought as to make
it not worth while to take thought for the future. Philoso-
<- phical determinism is the opposite of this. The jdetomimst
\ holds, in accordance with common experience, that the de-
j 1 iberate action of men is among the conditions that shape the

i— ' ***** "* *****a^"^ n--! _ — -•

V course of events, and is often the most important condition.

If particular men or societies are foolish enough to think that

their own acts or omissions count for nothing, that is a con-

^dition too, and its results will be greatly to their disadvantage.

[ Determinism, in short, if only one applies it thoroughly, leaves
all the common uses of life exactly where they were. For my

BODY AND MIND. 205

own part, I hold that the choice I exercise in writing these
lines is determined and in nowise arbitrary. But the sense
of power involved in the conscious exercise of choice is none
the less pleasurable for that. The schoolboy who runs, leaps,
or swims knows mighty little of the complex mechanism
that governs every action of his body. For all that English
schoolboys could learn from their appointed teachers till
within a few years past, he might fancy that his will acted
immediately on his hands and feet. The student of riper
years who seeks recreation in active exercise well knows that
this is not so. He is aware that he cannot lift his foot from
the ground, or adjust the balance of his oar, or shift the grasp of
his ice-axe, without calling into play an apparatus exceeding in
its intricate variety the staff and transport of a modern army.
He knows that innumerable parts must work harmoniously
together in their several functions to produce the desired
motion. Yet the physical delight of putting forth strength
or skill is no less in the man than in the boy. This, as
regards the body, is matter of common observation. I know
not why it should be otherwise in the mind. But perhaps a
much shorter answer should sufficiently meet the common
objection that determinism robs life of its interest ; for it is
the experience of a reasonable number of persons who hold
the doctrine, and who are not less competent than other men
to bear witness to their own feelings, that it does nothing of
the sort. In any case, it is time to return to Spinoza's own
exposition.

g~~The mind, he says, is a particular and determined mode
of thought, and as such can have no absolute or uncon
ditioned power of volition. Its state at a given moment, to
whatever so-called faculty we may refer it, is the effect of
some definite cause, which itself is the effect of a preceding
cause, and so on without end.1 The supposed faculties of
the mind, and thejviJi. among them, are abstract terms having

1 Eth. ii. 48.

206 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

a merely verbal existence.] ' Understanding and will have the
same relation to this and that idea, or this and that volition,
as lapideity to this and that stone, or man to Peter and Paul.'
Spinoza does not mean to say that the desire which begets
will is not a real and individual fact. ffTow he treats desire
we shall see later ; here he explains mat he distinguishes
will from desire, and regards it as, in the abstract, a faculty,
or, in the concrete, an act of jiffirmation or negation, or, as we
should now say, of judgment, j This appears to a modern
reader to be a needless complication of his case. It is
coupled with the doctrine that every idea involves a judg
ment,1 which, if we take idea in Spinoza's larger sense as in
cluding all states of consciousness, is a paradox, and if we
take idea in the restricted sense of conception, still remains
difficult of digestion. Spinoza gives the affirmation that the
angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles as
an example of a volition. Most people would deny that
there is any volition concerned in such a judgment. What is
implied in Spinoza's choice of such an example is that in his
view the mind is quite as active in the formation of a neces
sary inference as in fixing on one conclusion or course of
action out of several which may appear plausible. And who
ever admits this cannot well refuse the corollary thatj^wiU^
and understanding are one and the same.' In like manner
perception is inseparable from judgment : to perceive a winged
horse is to affirm that a horse has wings.jSo long as a winged
horse or anything else is present to the imagination, and no
other perception is present which contradicts its reality, we
shall believe in the real existence of the object. This is the
common experience of dreams, when the imagination is active
and unchecked. And thus, if the objection is made that will
differs in nature from understanding, because we have it in our
free choice to suspend our judgment whether we shall or shall
not assent to a given perception as corresponding to reality,
1 Prop. 49, and "Schol.

BODY AND MIND. 207

the answer is that jvhat we call suapftnsft_nfjnHsmgnfii jjlj]tllr
consciousness

other words, it is itself a perception

lect All this, it must be confessed, is a rather barren dis
cussion, and at this day serves chiefly to show with what
poverty of language, both in extent and in definition,
psychology had to labour in Spinoza's time. But the
manner in which he explains the strength of the common
notions as to the relation of mind and body, of which the
popular doctrine of free-will is really parcel, is of lasting
interest. It occurs in a later place,1 but it will be convenient
to translate part of it here. After giving as a separate pro
position the doctrine that the body can give rise to no
operation of thought in the mind, nor the mind to any
phenomenon of motion or otherwise in the body, he proceeds
to the difficulties of common sense on the subject : —

' I scarce believe, until I shall have assured myself of it by ex
perience, that men can be brought to consider this matter impartially :
so firmly are they persuaded that 'tis from the mere decree of the
mind that their bodies now move, now are at rest, and perform much
else that flows from the pure will and faculty of invention in the mind.
Certainly no man hath yet determined what are the powers of the
body : I mean that none has yet learnt from experience what the
body may perform by mere laws of nature, considering it only as a
material thing, and what it cannot do without the mind's determina
tion of it. For nobody has known as yet the frame of the body so
thoroughly as to explain all its operations ; not to say that in brutes
much is noted which doth far surpass human cunning, and that men
walking in their sleep often perform, so sleeping, that which they
would never dare waking ; which is proof enough that the body may,
merely by the laws of its own constitution, do much that its own
mind is amazed at. Again, there is none can tell how and in what
manner the mind moves the body, what measure of motion it can
impart to it, or with what velocity.'

To say, therefore, that a particular action of the body is
caused by the mind is only a grudging confession of ignorance

1 JSt/i. iii, 2, Schol.

2o8 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

as to its real cause. As for the appeal to common experience,
it cuts both ways. If the body is helpless without the mind,
so is the mind subject to be disabled by sleep, and otherwise
limited in its operation by bodily conditions. If it be said
that the existence of material works of art, such as houses,
pictures, and statues, is inexplicable on the supposition that
the human body is governed only by the physical laws of
its constitution, and that the body could never perform such
feats if it were not guided by the mind ; the answer is, as
before, that the objector knows not what the powers of the
body really are. Moreover, the human body itself is infi
nitely more artificial than any work of human art. Men say
they have experience that it is in the absolute power of the
mind either to speak or to keep silence, and the like ; to
which Spinoza replies that if it were indeed as much in
man's power to be silent as to speak, the world would be
much happier. The argument is a little more fully illustrated
in a letter (Ep. 62), which is partly identical with the passage
in hand.

' I call a thing free if it exists and acts merely from the necessary
laws of its own nature, but constrained if it is determined by some
thing else to exist and act in a certain determinate way. Thus God
exists necessarily, and yet freely, because he exists by the necessity of
his own nature alone. So God freely understands himself and every,
thing else, because it follows solely from the necessity of his own
nature that he must understand everything. You see then that I
make freedom consist not in a free decision of the will, but in free
necessity. . . .

*' Imagine, if you can. that a stone, while its motion continues, is
conscious, and knows that so far as it can it endeavours to persist in
its motion. This stone, since it is conscious only of its own endeavour
and deeply interested therein (minime indtfferens\ will believe that it
is perfectly free and continues in motion for no other reason than
that it so wills. Now such is this freedom of man's will which every
one boasts of possessing, and which consists only in this, that men
are aware of their own desires and ignorant of the causes by which
those desires are determined. So an infant thinks his appetite for

BODY AND MIND. 209

milk is free ; so a child in anger thinks his will is for revenge, in fear
that it is for flight. Again, a drunkard thinks he speaks of his free
will things which, when sober, he would fain not have spoken.'

That which we call choice in the mind is in truth exactly
correlated, or rather identical, with some determined physical
event in the body. Again, it must be conceded that our
freedom of action depends on memory ; we must remember
a particular word, for example, before we can will to speak or
not to speak it ; and memory is not subject to the will. At
best, therefore, the alleged power of volition can be exercised
only within the limits fixed by the range of memory. \

' But when we dream of speaking, we believe ourselves to speak
from a free decision of the mind, and yet we speak not, or if we do,
it is by an independent motion of the body. We dream, again, of
doing by the like decision sundry things which as waking men we
dare not ; and hereon I would fain know if there be in the mind two
sorts of decisions, the one merely fantastic and the other truly free.
But if we choose not to go that length in folly, it must needs be
allowed that this decision of the mind which is believed to be free
is not in truth distinguishable from the imagination or memory pre
ceding it, and is nothing else than that affirmation which an idea, in
somuch as it is an idea, doth of necessity include. So that these /
decisions of the mind arise therein by the same necessity as its ideas/
of really existing things. And they who believe themselves to speakn
or keep silence or do aught else by the free decision of their minds/
are men dreaming with their eyes open.'

So ends this characteristic and uncompromising expo
sition, which is too clear to need much commentary. Spinoza
seems to assume rather confidently that no advocate of
free-will would go so far as to maintain that there is a real
operation of that excellent faculty in dreaming. As a matter
of pure psychological argument, it is not easy to see what
should prevent it. But the doctrine of free-will is never, so
far as I know, maintained on a purely scientific footing : it is
always rested, at least in great part, on the supposed necessity

210 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

of having it as a foundation of moral responsibility. There
fore a disputant who, defending free-will on the usual grounds,
should assert that free-will is really exercised in dreams,
would find himself in an awkward position. For he must
admit either that free-will and moral responsibility are not
inseparable, or that we are morally responsible for all the
crimes and follies which the best and wisest of us, as common
experience abundantly shows, are liable to commit in our
dreams. The first alternative deprives the volitionist of his
principal interest in his cause ; the second is too repugnant
to common sense to be entertained, though something not
unlike it was held by St. Augustine.

Let us return to the conclusion of the Second Part of the
' Ethics/ where Spinoza sets forth the advantages of the phil
osophical doctrine of necessity. It gives a marked foretaste
of the manner in which the practical side of his teaching
coincides with that of the Stoics. The attainment of happi
ness by man through realizing his intimate union with the
I whole nature of things ; the distinction between things in our
|f power and things not in our power ; the avoidance of all dis
turbing passions, and the performance of social duties from
rational desire for the common good : all these points occur
in the paragraph I shall now translate, and all are not only
present but conspicuous in the Stoic theory of morals.
Spinoza's words are as follows : —

' It remains to show how much is gained for the uses of life by the
knowledge of this doctrine, which we shall easily perceive from these
considerations.

' First, it teaches us that we act only by the decree of God, and are
partakers of the .divine nature, and that in proportion as we are more
perfect in our actions and more advanced in the understanding of
God. Wherefore this doctrine, besides that it begets an absolute
content in the mind, excels also in this, that it teaches us wherein our
highest happiness or blessedness doth consist ; that is, in the know
ledge of God only, which leadeth us to do only such, things as be
commended by love and duty. Hence we" clearlyjmderstand how

BODY AND MIND. 211

far they go astray from a right judgment of virtue who look to be
illustrated by God with extreme rewards for virtue and perfect actions,
as for some extreme hardship of service ; as if virtue and the service
of God were not themselves very happiness and the extreme height
of freedom.

' Secondly, it teaches us how to carry ourselves as concerning the
gifts of fortune or things which are not in our power, I mean such
things as depend not on our own nature ; that is, that we should with
an equal mind await and bear either countenance of fortune, seeing
that all things follow from the eternal ordinance of God with the
same necessity whereby it follows from the nature of a triangle that
its three angles are equal to two right angles.

1 Thirdly, this doctrine is good for civil conversation, insomuch as
it teaches us to hold no man in hatred, contempt, or derision, and
not to be angered or envious at any one. Further, because it teaches
that every man should be content with his own and helpful to his neigh
bour ; not from womanish pity, favour, or superstition, but merely at
the bidding of reason, according to the time and matter, as I shall
show in the third part.1

' Lastly, this doctrine is of no small profit for the commonwealth
in that it shows how citizens are to be governed and led, that is, not
to make them do service, but to cause them to do freely whatsoever
is best. And herewith I have finished that of which I purposed to
treat in this Scholium, and so I make an end of this our second part ;
conceiving that therein I have explained the nature and qualities of
the human mind at sufficient length, and as clearly as the difficulty of
the thing admits ; and that from that which I have delivered many
conclusions may be drawn of excellent use and very necessary to be
known, as in the sequel shall partly appear.'

With the second book of the ' Ethics ' the general part, as
we may call it, of Spinoza's philosophy comes to an end.
The rest is concerned with the application to definite pro
blems of the principles already laid out. Before we pass
on to these we cannot but notice the one extraordinary
defect which is conspicuous in Spinoza's psychology. One
of the first things we expect from a psychologist nowadays

1 Or rather the fourth. It appears from Spinoza's letters that the third and
fourth part of the Ethics were originally meant to form one.

212

SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

is a systematic account of the processes of perception and
knowledge. ?Bu.t Spinoza does not appear to have any theory
of perception at all. He assumes, as we all assume, that
there is some kind of correspondence between sensations in
consciousness and things in the external world. But of the
nature of that correspondence he has very little to say. We
find the important proposition, which had already been given
by Descartes, that sensation, being a function of the organism,
depends not simply on the external object, but on the organ
ism as affected by the object J we find also a marked appre
ciation of the advantages to be derived from studying the
phenomena of sensation and thought under their physiolo
gical aspect We do not find, however, any explicit hand
ling of the problems which are started by the old Platonic
question : What is Knowledge ? The omission may be
ascribed to several reasons. First, the aim of Spinoza's
treatise is not to give a complete system of philosophy or
psychology, but to show the way to human happiness. The
philosophical introduction, elaborate as it appears, is sub
ordinate to the ethical purpose. Next, these questions were
not prominent in Spinoza's time. They were put in the front
rank of discussion by Locke, Spinoza's contemporary by birth,
but in philosophy standing wholly apart from him and be
longing to another generation. And I conceive that the
psychological problem of knowledge was obscured to Spinoza's
own mind by that ambiguous and distracting use of the word
idea which has already been more than once noticed. Not
that his metaphysical principles are in themselves unable to
furnish means of dealing with the problem : on the contrary
they very much simplify it. The puzzle of sensation, when
considered in the usual way, is that there is a relation between
the heterogeneous terms of consciousness and motion. Some
thing happens in my optic nerves, physiology may or may
not be able to say exactly what, and thereupon I see. Can
my sensation of sight be said to resemble the thing seen, or

BODY AND MIND. 213

the images on my two retinae, or the motions in the optic
nerves, and if so, in what sense ? These questions are
essentially insoluble on the common supposition that body
and mind are distinct" substances or orders in nature. If bodj
and mind are really the same thing, the knot is cut, or rather.
vanishes. The problem of making a connexion between the
inner and the outer series of phenomena becomes a purely
scientific one. It is no longer a metaphysical paradox, but
the combination of two methods of observing the same facts,
or facts belonging to the same orderj and the science of
physiological psychology can justify itself on philosophical
grounds, besides making good its claims by the practical test
of results. But the people who cry materialism at everything
they disagree with or cannot understand will doubtless cry
out that this also is materialism. And they are very welcome
to any good it can do them.

2i4 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NATURE OF MAN.

Behold, I show you truth ! Lower than hell,
Higher than heaven, outside the utmost stars,
Farther than Brahm doth dwell,

Before beginning, and without an end,

As space eternal and as surety sure,
Is fixed a power divine which moves to good,

Only its laws endure.

Out of the dark it wrought the heart of man,
Out of dull shells the pheasant's pencilled neck ;

Ever at toil, it brings to loveliness
All ancient wrath and wreck.

It slayeth and it saveth, nowise moved

Except unto the working out of doom ;
Its threads are Love and Life ; and Death and Pain

The shuttles of its loom.

EDWIN ARNOLD, The Light of Asia.

SPINOZA'S inquiry concerning the Passions, which forms the
Third Part of the Ethics, is best introduced in his own
words.

'THE PREFACE.

' Most of those who have writ concerning the passions and man's
way of life appear as if they handled not such things as belong to
nature, and follow her common laws, but things outside nature ; in
somuch that they conceive man to be in nature as a kingdom with
in a kingdom. For they suppose that man rather confounds than
follows the order of nature, and has an absolute power over his own
actions, being no otherwise determined than by himself. As con-

THE NATURE OF MAN, 215

earning men's weakness and unsteadfastness, they attribute these not
to the common power of nature, but to some defect in the nature of
man ; which therefore they bewail, mock, despise, or (which for the
most part happens) vituperate ; and he passes for the best prophet
who can most eloquently and shrewdly rebuke the human mind for
its weakness. Not that most renowned authors have been wanting (to
whose labour and ingenuity we do confess ourselves much indebted)
who have written much and excellently on the right way of life, and
have given to mankind precepts full of wisdom. But none of these,
to my knowledge, hath determined the nature and strength of the
passions, or what on the other part the mind can do in restraining
them. I well know that the admirable Descartes (though he supposed
the mind to have an absolute power over its own actions) yet en
deavoured both to explain human passions by their immediate causes,
and to show the road whereby the mind could come to a perfect
mastery thereof. But, in my judgment, he hath shown nothing but
the exceeding sharpness of his own wit, as I shall prove in the
fitting place. But to return to those who choose rather to abhor or
deride the passions and actions of men than to understand them ;
this sort will no doubt be amazed that I go about to treat of human
defects and follies after the geometrical manner, and would fain
demonstrate by certain reasoning that which, as they so loudly
protest, is against all reason, idle, absurd, and abominable. But
such is my way. Nothing happens in nature that can be ascribed to
a defect of nature ; for nature is always and everywhere one and the
same, and her virtue and power of operation is the same : that is, the
laws and rules of nature, according to which all things are made and
change from one form into another, are everywhere and always the
same ; and therefore there should be but one and the same way of
understanding things of whatsoever kind, to wit, by the universal laws
and rules of nature. Thus the passions of hatred, anger, envy and
the like, when considered in themselves, follow from the like necessity
and virtue of nature as all other individual things ; and accordingly
they obey fixed causes, whereby they may be understood, and have
their fixed properties, equally worthy of our knowledge as the pro
perties of any other thing in the mere contemplation whereof we take
delight. I shall treat therefore of the nature and strength of the
passions, and the power of the mind over them, by the same method
as I have treated of God and the mind in the foregoing parts ; and I
shall consider human actions and desires after the same sort as if the
inquiry were concerned with lines, surfaces, or solids.'

216 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

This passage throws light, among other things, on the
true significance of Spinoza's geometrical method. It is not
that he thinks the geometrical method of exposition an in
fallible engine of discovery ; but he is determined to conduct
the investigation of human nature in a purely scientific spirit,
and he chooses the geometrical form as the most perfect and
striking type of scientific method. The scientific value of his
results in this part of his work is not only recognized by
modern criticism, but may be described as the one point on
which almost all expounders and critics have agreed. Spi
noza's account of the passions is universally spoken of as his
masterpiece. I shall quote only one scientific testimony,
which has a peculiar value as coming from a leading authority
in physiology, being given in the course of his proper scientific
work, and acted upon by him in an unmistakable manner.
This witness is Johannes Miiller.

' With regard to the relations of the passions to one another, apart
from their physiological conditions, it is impossible to give any better
account than that which Spinoza has laid down with unsurpassed
mastery. In the following statement I shall therefore confine myself
to giving the propositions of Spinoza on that subject.' *

And this he proceeds to do without further criticism or
comment. We shall find that his view is indirectly con
firmed by the work of more recent inquirers in both natural
science and psychology.

The first spring of action, common to man with every
creature, is self-preservation. We must not say the desire of
self-preservation, for desire, as conceived by Spinoza, comes
later. His leading propositions on the subject are thus ex
pressed :— -

1 Physiologic dis Menschen, ii. 543. Dr. Diihring's remarks on this are
curious : ' In neuester Zeit hat auch ein Physiolog von einigem Professorruf,
Johannes Miiller, ungeachtet seiner engherzigen, religios und politisch riicklaufigen
Denkweise, von seinem Standpunkt aus die von Spinoza gelieferte Statik der
Leidenschaften fiir so gelungen erachtet,' &c.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 217

' Each individual thing, so far as in it lies, endeavours to persist
in its own being.

The effort wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own
being is nothing else than that tiling's being what it is' (praeter ipsius
rei actualem essentiam).1

In a former chapter we traced this fundamental proposition
from its Cartesian use as a physical axiom or law of motion
through Spinoza's repetition and extension of it in the ex
position of Descartes which was his first published work. We
also noticed that in a more extensive application it was
current in the post- Aristotelian schools of Greek philosophy,
and notably among the Stoics. In the middle ages, too, it
appears to have been familiar in a scholastic form. Spinoza,
however, probably knew nothing of its earlier history and
meaning, and certainly did not concern himself with them.
He took the statement from Descartes as a general law of
physics ; and, as he extended without limit the scientific
view of the world propounded by Descartes, so he extended
the range of those principles from which the Cartesian system
undertook to explain all sensible phenomena, or at least to
show that they were explicable.

It is important to bear in mind the interpretation and
warning given by Spinoza himself. The statement that
everything endeavours to persist in its own being might seem
to imply some notion that the effort or tendency to self-pre
servation is a mysterious power implanted in things and
antecedent to their existence. Such a power has been con
ceived in both ancient and modern philosophies. Varieties of
it are the karma of Buddhism, which performs the singular
feat of keeping up a chain of transmigration when there is no
soul to transmigrate ; 2 the supposed ultimate activity sym
bolically called Will by Schopenhauer ; and the more ela
borate version of it given as the Unconscious in Hartmann's

1 Eth. iii. pr. 6, 7 ; cf. Cogit. Met. pt. i. cap. 7, § 8.

2 Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 101.

218 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

system. But Spinoza most carefully excludes all assump
tions of this kind. The self-preserving effort is nothing else
than the thing's being what it is. Whatever the thing in
question may be, the mere fact of its existence means that it
must be reckoned with. Great or small, there it is, and you
cannot get it out of the way without doing work upon it.
Destruction is only a name for processes of change which are
peculiarly conspicuous to our senses or important in their
results. Every change implies motion, and every motion
implies work, and signifies resistance overcome. This resist
ance, as we call it from the point of view of the worker over
coming it from the outside, is persistence or * effort of self-
preservation ' if we shift the adjustment of the mind's eye, and
fix the centre of the field of imagination in the thing operated
upon. The use of the word effort (conatus} belongs to the
realistic habits of scientific language in Spinoza's time. He
speaks of effort in this relation, just as long afterwards mathe
maticians were accustomed to speak of a force or power of
inertia, which is indeed the same thing in its simplest physical
aspect. It might be rash to affirm that even now vis inertice
and other terms of the same kind do not survive in books
which may be put into the hands of students. But at that
time the usage went farther. Not only inertia was a force,
but velocity was spoken of as the cause of a body's changing
its place. Nay, in our own time Mr. Herbert Spencer has
called momentum the cause of motion. We need not be
surprised, then, that elsewhere Spinoza speaks of this self-
preserving endeavour as a force (vis qua unaquaeque [res] in
existendo perseverat).1 In the case of living creatures he
identifies it with life. In the less complex relations of the
material world it would appear (as we have just seen) in the

1 Eth. ii. 45, Schol., with which cf. Cogit. Met. pt. ii. cap. 6, § 3 ; but he
there says, « Ilia vis a rebus ipsis est diversa, ' which is contradicted not only by
the Ethics, but quite as strongly by a passage which stands earlier in the same
work (pt. i. c. 6, §§ 8, 9). I have already suggested that the Cogitata Metaphys. cz
may be made up of notes written at various dates.

THE NATURE OF MAN.

219

fundamental properties of matter — inertia, mass, and impene
trability. But the fact now assumed as ultimate for ordinary
scientific purposes, that every atom of every element succeeds
in preserving itself, would in Spinoza's view be no more than
a striking illustration. The conatus is equally present in the
most unstable as in the most stable of combinations. A
molecule of water endeavours, in the peculiar sense here ex
plained, not to be decomposed ; and not less so, while it holds
together, does the molecule of some of those transitory com
pounds which explode at a touch or vibration.

It will perhaps help us to understand Spinoza's meaning
if we invert the order of his terms. Instead of considering
whether things can be said to exercise a self-preserving effort,
let us ask ourselves what we mean by a thing.1 The question
is not as easy as it seems ; yet an answer may be given in
few words. We take it from Mr. Herbert Spencer : exist
ence, he tells us, means persistence. A thing is a group of
phenomena which persists. Herein is its individuality, its
title to be counted apart from the surrounding medium. We
shall find that persistence for an appreciable time, in a manner
obvious to sense, and against appreciable external force, is
the test applied by the unconscious philosophizing of language.

The first requisite of a thing is that it should be appa
rently continuous in itself and not continuous with things
outside it. It must be definite, or we should not want to
name it ; still more must it be persistent, or we could not
name it at all. What is more, the persistence must be con
ceived as depending on the thing itself, and not as a pre
carious result of external conditions. Take a cubical vessel
full of water. The vessel is beyond question a thing. Is
the water also a thing ? Every molecule of it is assuredly
represented as a real thing in the duly trained imagination,

1 Spinoza gives a physical definition in Cartesian terms of unum corpus size
indimduum in Part ii. of the Ethics (excursus after Schol. to Pr. 13). But it is
not exactly to the present purpose^ nor is it very lucid to the modern reader.

220 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

though it cannot be separately observed. But the body of water
is not regarded as a thing either by a scientific or an unscien
tific observer. It is sensibly continuous, and it is persistent so
long as it is confined by the walls of the vessel ; but it will
persist no longer. When the external restraint is removed it
will flow away, assume other forms, and be dispersed. We
refuse it the name of a thing because it is manifestly held
together only by external forces. Take a cubic inch of water
inside this vessel, or a cubic foot of air in the atmosphere :
these again are not things in common speech, and for the like
reasons. Cases may be put, however, so as to present all
degrees of doubt. For example, is a pile of cannon-balls a
thing ? More work is required to dislodge one of the shot
than to sever or destroy many things of undoubted reality, if
we may use the term in a strictly scholastic sense ; and the
pile is not less continuous to the eye than many a rough stone
wall or cairn which, like itself, is kept together merely by
friction and gravity. Nevertheless, while nobody would
hesitate to speak of the wall or cairn as a thing, I doubt
whether any one would so speak of the pile of shot, unless as
an object confusedly seen in the distance. I conceive that
here we are determined by considerations of human use and
intention. The normal use of stones is to be built into walls,
and the possible uses of the individual stones are too trifling to
be much thought of. Cannon-balls are made to be separately
fired off, and the pile is in itself of no use whatever. In the
case of the wall or cairn the parts are there for the sake of the
whole, and are merged in it : in the case of the pile of shot
the whole is there for the sake of the parts. Hence we
regard the heap of stones as meant for one permanent thing,
and the heap of shot as meant for a provisional arrangement of
many things. In fine, the conception of individual things as
such is an affair of our perceptions, and to some extent of our
convenience. That such was Spinoza's view is pretty mani
fest from what he says in various places in the First and

THE NATURE OF MAN. 221

Second Parts of the Ethics, and this goes to support the read
ing now offered of his principle of self-preservation.

So understood, the principle is simple enough. How then
does Spinoza connect it with the world of life and action ? or
what light can it throw on the intricate play of human
passions ? The connexion is made out by affirming that the
impulse or desire of self-preservation which we know in our
own feeling is a special manifestation of the universal principle
involved in existence itself. The mind ' endeavours to
persist in its being with a certain undetermined duration, and
is conscious of this its endeavour.' l Such endeavour, consi
dered with regard to the mind alone, is called will ; consi
dered with regard to mind and body together, it is called
appetite ; ' which is nothing else than the very being of the
man, from whose nature those things of necessity follow
which make for his preservation ; and thus the man is deter
mined to the doing of such things. Then betwixt appetite
and desire there is no difference, save that for the most part
desire is ascribed to men in so far as they be conscious of
their appetite ; and therefore it may be thus defined, that is
to say : desire is appetite with consciousness thereof. From all
which it appears that we have not endeavour, will, appetite,
or desire for anything, because we deem it good ; but con
trariwise deem a thing good, because we have an endeavour,
will, appetite, or desire for it.'

Whether this bold and far-reaching thought of Spinoza's
can be justified in its whole extent I do not venture to say.
But I entertain no doubt that, after all possible deductions, it
contains profound and vital truth. It seems probable that
the extreme complexity and the late development of distinct
consciousness, and consequently of the emotions as they are
known in the adult experience of mankind, were underrated
by Spinoza. It may be that they were very much under
rated, though we have already seen that the composite

1 Eth. iii. 9, and Schol.

222 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

character of mind was most clearly asserted by him. He
appears to jump from unconscious organic processes — which,
let us again repeat it, are in his view mental as well as
material, or rather both in one — to the facts of vivid con
sciousness. The love of life in man is more than an organic
feeling ; the finished ideas of memory and expectation, and
even the highly wrought conceptions of our ethical and social
nature, have their part in it. And in our active consciousness
these more refined elements are predominant. But in the
main it is enough for Spinoza's purpose that the organic feel
ing is there ; and that such a feeling is in truth deeply rooted
in us is a proposition which we need not waste time in
establishing. We have already called in Mr. Herbert
Spencer to help us to a modern reading of Spinoza's thought.
We shall now for a like purpose appeal to his definition of life,
which is especially valuable as an interpretation of scientific
results framed in perfect independence of Spinoza's work, and
proceeding on different lines.

According to this definition, life is ' the continuous adjust
ment of internal relations to external relations ;' it ' consists
in maintenance of inner actions corresponding with outer
actions.' Now this adjustment or maintenance is precisely
what Spinoza means by a thing's persistence in its own being.
The organism endeavours to persist in the face of external
conditions, converting them to its use when it can, or resisting
them at need ; and the success of this endeavour is life. It is
observed by Mr. Herbert Spencer himself that the definition
in this form is too wide ; but, to whatever extent this may be
a defect for the purposes of natural history or biology, from
Spinoza's point of view it is a merit. The correlation of mind
and matter being universal, and all things endowed with life
in various degrees, philosophy is not concerned to draw a line
anywhere to mark where life begins. Philosophically speak
ing, the attempt to draw one is illusory ; and it is a question
whether science itself may not ere long bring us the same

THE NATURE OF MAN. 223

report. We may confine ourselves for the present, however,
to the undoubted manifestations of life. Spinoza does not
profess to give a particular account of nature, or even the
whole of animated nature, but of man. As regards life in its
common acceptation, it will be seen that Mr. Herbert Spencer
takes in a factor of great importance which is not marked by
Spinoza. He speaks of continuous adjustment, thus implying
that external relations are constantly changing and requiring
adjustments to be effected. Nature commands the adjust
ment under the penalty of extinction. Now the striving of
every creature to keep its own nature in harmony with the
world around it is the fundamental fact whose consequences
are traced in the modern doctrine of evolution. Natural
history, as Mr. Darwin and Mr. Spencer have taught us to
see, is the history of the never-ceasing effort of individuals
and races to maintain a certain correspondence between
the organism and its environment. The nearer this corre
spondence approaches to completeness, the more perfect and
secure is the existence of the individual and the kind.
Spinoza pointed to the law of persistence, but could not trace
its working. We now know that in operation it becomes a
law of development. Older by countless ages than conscious
desire, older than anything to which we now grant the name
of life, the primeval and common impulse — ' the will to live,
the competence to be' — is at length in the sight of all men, as
it was for Spinoza's keener vision, the root of all action and of
all that makes the world alive. Not that we claim Spinoza
as a forerunner of the theory of evolution. He had no
materials for anticipating it ; and even if he had seemed to
I prophesy it, the prophecy would have been a guess in the
i dark. His merit is rather to have abstained, with a singular
| philosophical tact or instinct, from any prematurely ambitious
construction. As his work stands, one does not see that on
: the face of it his principle of self-conservation is sufficiently
I connected with the real world : there is a void space between

224 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

the idea and the facts. But one also sees that the required
connexion is wonderfully supplied by Mr. Darwin. The gap
has been left open at exactly the right place, and Spinoza
had the wisdom to leave it open rather than fill it up in
adequately, and the courage to stand by the idea with such
light as he had.

The practical value of Spinoza's analysis of the passions
is, however, to a great extent independent of the general
axiom from which he starts. All that is really necessary to
be granted is that man has the impulse or instinct of self-
preservation, and desires power and fulness of life : and this
much it would need some boldness to dispute, however the
fact itself may be explicable. Let us see how Spinoza
reaches the cardinal definitions of Pleasure and Pain ; car-
\ dinal because with him Pleasure, Pain, and Desire are the
iprimary elements of which, according to the variety of objects
jexciting them, all human passions are compounded. It is
stated as a direct consequence from the correspondence of
body and mind that ' whatsoever increases or diminishes, helps
or hinders, the active power (agendi potentiam) of our body ;
the idea thereof likewise increases or diminishes, helps* or
hinders, the sentient power (cogitandi potentiam) of our
mind.' ' Thus we see,' adds the Scholium, ' that the mind
may undergo great variations, and pass now to a greater, now
to a lesser perfection ; which effects explain to us the states
' of pleasure and pain. ¥>y pleasure I shall therefore hereafter
understand an affection whereby the mind passes to a greater
perfection ; and by pain an affection whereby it passes to a
lesser perfection.' * Here again there is a singular coincidence
with modern scientific speculation. Mr. Herbert Spencer is
led, on the one hand by the evidence of the actual conditions
of pleasure and pain in their most conspicuous and regular
manifestations, on the other hand by deduction from the
hypothesis of evolution, to conclude that ' pains are the

1 Eth. iii. 1 1.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 225

correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while
pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive to its
welfare.' But an action or event conducive to the welfare of
the organism is precisely what Spinoza means by ' transition
to a greater perfection ; ' conversely, an action injurious to the
organism is in Spinoza's language a transition to less per
fection. Pleasure marks the raising, pain the lowering, of the
vital energies, and consequently the advance or depression of
the creature in the scale of being, to a corresponding extent
and in so far as the particular event is concerned. The
results of the philosopher who still passes for a mere dog
matist agree in their full extent with those of the latest
inquirer working by induction from the facts of biology.
Spinoza's definition, it will be seen, implies that pleasure is i
not only normally but invariably beneficial in itself, and pain I
hurtful. Not that the normal indications of pain and pleasure
may not be disturbed, so as to make them in particular cases
blind or worse than blind guides. Experience of this kind is
only too common ; and the explanation of it is briefly touched
on by Mr. Herbert Spencer, and has been more lately con
sidered by others. But the pleasure which leads to ultimate
harm is yet not an evil in itself, but a partial good bought
at a ruinous price : the pain which brings healing is not by
itself a good, but an evil submitted to that greater evil may
be avoided. And we here use the terms good and evil as
denoting the quality, not of the sensation as such (for that
would only be to say that pleasure is pleasure and pain is
pain), but of the events and relations in the organism imme
diately indicated by the sensation. Anaesthetics, for example,
are useful not merely because pain is escaped for the moment,
but because the shock and exhaustion which are the direct
consequences of pain are escaped with it. This view of the
intrinsic utility of pleasure and hurtfulness of pain has been
ingeniously maintained by Mr. Grant Allen, who thus com
pletes the accordance between Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine

226 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

and that of Spinoza. Accepting this view, we shall say that
the action beneficial to the organism which, in Mr. Spencer's
language, is correlated with pleasure, is not the antecedent or
concomitant of the pleasurable sensation, but the corporeal or
objective aspect of the sensation itself. The importance of
the remoter consequences, and the weight of Mr. Spencer's
argument therefrom, remain, of course, unchanged. The in
dividuals and races whose nervous system has been trained
by experience to forecast impending good or ill at an early
stage, and to report them by means of pleasure and pain to
the centres of voluntary action, have an advantage in the
struggle for life precisely like that of the prudent over the un
thinking man, or of an army where sentinel and outpost duties
are carefully performed over one in which they are neglected.
But we must return to following Spinoza.

The special forms of Pleasure and Pain on which most of
the passions depend are Love and Hatred. In Spinoza's
language these include like and dislike ; in fact the English
language is alone, or nearly so, in marking a difference of
degree in these emotions so sharply as it does. The mind
seeks to retain in consciousness whatever increases its power,
and to recall whatever may counteract the impression of such
things as hurt or hinder it ; these being simple manifestations
of the self-preserving tendency. Hence arise Love, which is
Pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause ; and
Hatred, which is Pain with the like accompaniment And, by
the law of association of ideas already given in the Second
Part, objects in themselves indifferent may excite pleasure,
pain, and desire by their casual association with other things
which are of themselves apt to excite those emotions. Hence
the obscure likings and dislikings which are commonly referred
to an unknown cause called sympathy or antipathy. They
depend on some association by resemblance which is known
only in its effects.1 Through association, again, a conflict of

1 Eth. iii. 12-15.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 227

emotions is possible ; for something which affects us with pain
may at the same time call up memories of equal or greater
pleasure. But conflicts may be more directly produced, for
the human body is exceedingly complex, and therefore may
be variously affected at the same time and by the same object.
External objects, too, are themselves complex, and may have
complex effects on the same bodily organs. The emotions of
hope, fear, confidence, despair, joy, and disappointment, are
accounted for by the imagination working on the conception
of pleasurable or painful events as future or past.1 The effects
of love and hatred in inducing emotions of pleasure and pain
by sympathy are then set forth. We have pleasure in the
welfare of a beloved object, and pain in its destruction ; its
pleasure and pain give rise to the like affections in us ; we
love that which we conceive as giving pleasure to it, and hate
that which we conceive as giving pain ; and hatred on the
other hand produces the contrary effects (Eth. 3, 19-26). But
the range and power of sympathy are yet wider. In addition
to these causes the mere conception of anything as like our
selves is a source of induced emotion.

' When it happens that we imagine a thing like ourselves, and
which we have not regarded with any particular emotion, to be
affected with any emotion, we are thereupon affected with the like
emotion'2 (Pr. 27).

For, in so far as an external object conceived by us as
affected in a particular way resembles our own body, so far
will our representation of its condition include a representation
or faint repetition of similar states of our own consciousness :
or, under the physiological aspect, as Spinoza puts it, ' the idea
of the external body imagined by us will imply an affection
of our body like to that of the external body ; and accordingly

1 Propp. 17, 1 8. I translate consdentiae morsus by 'disappointment, 'as Spinoza
warns us at the end of the book that his terms do not always bear their common
meaning. Remorse is described later as poenitentia.

- The original Affecttis is a wider term ; not being confined to consciousness

Q 2

228 SPINOZA; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

if we imagine any one like ourselves to be affected with any
emotion, this imagination will be the expression in conscious
ness of an affection of our body like the said emotion.' Here,
as often in Spinoza, the complexity and difficulty of the physio
logical side of the inquiry are apparently slurred or underrated.
But the psychology is thoroughly sound in its main features,
and we must never forget that it was by keeping the physio
logical side constantly in view that Spinoza escaped the count
less fallacies from which not even Kant has been able wholly
to deliver us.

Varieties of these induced or imitative emotions of sym
pathy are pity, emulation or the pursuit of similar objects of
desire, and benevolence, which is defined as a desire arising
from pity, and seeking to liberate the object of pity from the
evils of its condition.1 Another result of this extended sym
pathy (which in modern language we may call the sympathy
of race, or more shortly and exactly kindliness) is that ' we
shall endeavour to do whatever we conceive men to look upon
with pleasure, and shun the doing of that which we conceive
them to shun ' (Pr. 29). If we think we have succeeded in
pleasing other men by our actions, the result is complacency ;
if we seem to have displeased them, it is shame. The belief
that our affection towards any object is shared by others will
strengthen that affection ; if the disposition of another towards
an object liked or disliked by us is contrary to our own, there
ensues a fluctuation or conflict of emotion in us. Hence we
endeavour to associate others with us in our emotions. This
desire that others should agree with us has in its crude form
the nature of ambition, and begets mutual hindrance and dis
cord. Hence also arises envy : for another's enjoyment ex
cites in us an appetite for the like enjoyment ; and if it is
such that it cannot be shared with our neighbour, we shall
wish to deprive him of it.2 How these effects of sympathy

1 Benevolentia . . . nihil aliud estquam cupiditas e commiseratione orta. (Pr.
27, Schol. 2.)
1 Pr. 30-32.

THE NATURE OF MAN, 229

may be controlled to rational and social uses is not considered
in the present part of the ' Ethics,' but will appear in due
course. Spinoza throws out here, but without dwelling on it,
the important hint that the psychology of the passions may be
studied to advantage in children, their tender organism being
as it were in a state of unstable equilibrium, and offering
slight resistance to external impressions. We see that the
laughing or weeping of others in their presence will make
them laugh or weep ; that they seek to imitate whatever they
see others doing, and desire for themselves whatever seems to
give pleasure to others.1

Other combinations and effects of the master passions of
love and hatred are worked out in a series of propositions
which we shall not follow in detail. But it may be useful to
translate a few of them as specimens of Spinoza's manner.
The omitted demonstrations involve reference to other pro
positions without which they are not intelligible.

' Prop. 43. Hatred is increased by mutual hatred, and contrariwise
may be abolished by love.

Demonstration. Whenever one conceives a person hated by him
to be affected with hatred towards him, thereupon a new hatred
arises while the first, by the supposition, is yet in being. But if on
the other hand he conceive this person to be affected with love
towards him, in so far as he conceives this he will regard himself with
pleasure, and to that extent will endeavour to please that other ; that
is, to that extent he endeavours not to hate him and to do no dis
pleasure to him. And this endeavour will be greater or less in pro
portion to the emotion whence it arises. Therefore if it be greater than
that which arises from hatred, and through which the man endeavours
: to do displeasure to the thing he hates, it will prevail over it, and
;. abolish the hate from his mind ; which was to be proved.

Prop. 44. When hatred is wholly overcome by love, it passes into
llove ; and this love is greater than if hatred had not gone before it.

Scholium. Though this be so, yet no man will endeavour to hate
anything or undergo displeasure that he may enjoy this greater
pleasure ; that is, no one will desire harm to be done to himself for

1 Pr. 32, Schol.

230 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

the hope of making it good, nor long to be sick for the hope of
growing whole. For every man will always endeavour to preserve
his being and to keep off pain as far as he can. But if it can be
supposed that a man may desire to hate some one that he may after
wards be affected with greater love towards him, then he will con
stantly desire to hate him. F< r the greater the hatred has been, the
greater the love shall be, and therefore he will constantly wish the
hate to be more and more augmented ; and for the like reason a
man will endeavour to be more and more sick, that he may enjoy
greater pleasure afterwards in the return of health ; which is absurd.

Prop. 49. Love and hatred towards a thing which we conceive as
free must both be greater, the occasion being otherwise the same,
than towards a thing conceived as necessary.

SchoL Hence it follows that men, because they deem themselves
free, are moved toward one another with greater love and hate than
other creatures ; besides which is to be considered the imitation of
emotions above mentioned (Prop. 27, 34, 40, and 43 of this Part).'

A little farther on we have an important group of pro
positions concerning the active powers of the mind. When
the mind contemplates itself and its own power, this gives
rise to pleasure ; while the contemplation of one's own weak
ness gives rise to pain.1

1 This displeasure accompanied by the idea of our own weakness
is called dejection (humilitas) ; the pleasure that arises from the con
templation of oneself is named self-love or self-complacency. And
seeing this is renewed every time that a man contemplates his own
faculties or active power, it likewise follows that every one is eager to
recount his own doings and display his strength both of body and
mind, and for this reason men are troublesome to one another.
Also this oftentimes leads men to be enviously disposed, that is, to
rejoice at the infirmity of their fellows, and be displeased at their
excellence. For so often as this or that man conceives his own
actions, he is affected with pleasure, and the more so as he conceives
them more distinctly and as expressing a greater perfection ; or in
other words, the more he can distinguish them from others and
contemplate them as individual things. Wherefore every one will j
most rejoice in the contemplation of himself when the quality con-

1 Propp. 53, 54, 55. Prop. 54 is a curious example of Spinoza's most artificial
manner.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 231

templated in himself is somewhat he allows not in other creatures.
But if that which he affirms of himself be ascribed by him to man or
animals in general, he will not be so much delighted ; contrariwise
he will be displeased if he conceives his own actions as infirm in
comparison of other men's. And this displeasure he will strive to
put off, namely, by perversely construing the actions of his fellows, or
dressing out his own as best he may. Thus ;tis plain that men are
naturally prone to hate and envy, which last is also favoured by their
bringing up. For it is the way of parents to urge their children
towards excellence with the spur of ambition and envy. But per-
adventure some doubt remains, because we often admire men's
excellence and do them honour. To remove this I shall add this
following corollary.

No man is envious of excellence unless in one supposed his
equal.

Demonstration. Envy is of the nature of hate or displeasure, that
is, an affection whereby man's active power or endeavour is hindered.
But man doth not endeavour or desire to do anything but what can
follow from his own nature as he finds the same. Therefore a man
will not desire any active power or excellence (for 'tis all one) to be
attributed to him which belongs to some other nature and is foreign
to his own. So his desire cannot be hindered, that is, the man
cannot suffer displeasure, from his contemplation of some excellence
in one unlike himself, and by consequence he cannot envy such an
one. But his equal fellow he can envy, since he is assumed to be of
like nature with him.'

So that when we admire men for singular foresight,
courage, or other qualities, this is because we conceive their
qualities, at least in that degree, as singular and above the
common fortune of men. The hero is conceived as not of one
mould with ourselves, and we no more entertain envy with
respect to him than against the lion for his courage or against
a tree for its height.1

It is to be observed that Spinoza is in this book concerned
only with the play of the emotions when left to themselves.
He does not mean to deny that rational and unselfish
admiration of human excellence as such is possible and

1 Scholia to Prop. 5";.

232 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

practicable. But this is the effect of right knowledge and the
discipline of society, which have not yet been considered. It
is next pointed out that pleasure, pain and desire, and there
fore all the emotions derived from them, are of as many kinds
and varieties as the external objects which are the occasion
of them ; and also that the emotions differ in every individual
-according to the difference of the internal conditions of his
constitution. Thus the desires and appetites of animals are
specifically different from the analogous desires and appetites
in man, and the pleasure of a drunkard is by no means the
same as the pleasure of a philosopher. Spinoza here ap
proaches the question whether all pleasures are commensurable,
which is prominent in modern discussions of the theory oi
ethics : but he does not pursue it. From his point of view it
is at best superfluous, and I cannot help suspecting that,
either in Spinoza's way or in some other not very far from it,
we shall finally acquiesce in the same conclusion.

So far the discourse has been of the emotions considered
as passions, or ' ascribed to man in so far as he is acted upon ;'
but there are also emotions of an active kind. Pleasure arises
from the mind's contemplation of its own power ; but such
contemplation is present whenever the mind has a true or
adequate idea (because true knowledge includes certitude or
the consciousness of its truth, Eth. 2, 43, see p. 129 above).
Therefore the conception of adequate ideas is a pleasurable
activity of the mind ; and activity as such includes the effort
or desire of self-maintenance. Hence there is a desire which
is purely active. This active and reasonable desire is the
source of virtue ; which has two main branches according as
desire is directed by reason to the welfare of the agent him
self, or to doing good to other men and seeking their friend
ship. (Prop. 59, Schol.) Having thus brought the third part
of the Ethics to an end, Spinoza recapitulates his definitions of
the emotions with some few additions and new explanations.
I shall make no apology for translating this piece at length.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 233

THE DEFINITIONS OF THE EMOTIONS.

i. DESIRE is the being of man itself, in so far as we conceive it as
determined to a particular action by any given affection of it.

Explanation. We have said above, in the Scholium to Prop. 9
of this part, that desire is appetite with consciousness thereof ; and
that appetite is the being itself of man, in so far as it is determined
to such actions as make for his preservation. But in that scholium
I likewise noted that in truth I acknowledged no difference between
the appetite and the desire of men. For whether a man be conscious
of his appetite or not, yet the appetite is still one and the same ; and
thus, lest I should seem to fall into tautology, I would not explain
desire by appetite, but have sought so to define it as to comprise in
one word all those efforts of human nature which we signify by the
name of appetite, will, desire or impulse. I might well have said
that desire is the being of man itself, so far as we conceive it as
determined to a particular action ; but from this definition it would
not follow (by Prop. 23, Part 2) * that the mind could be conscious
of its own appetite or desire. Therefore, in order to include the
cause of this consciousness, it was needful to add : by any given
affection of it. For by an affection of human being or nature we
understand every disposition thereof, whether it be innate, whether
it be conceived purely under the attribute of thought or purely under
that of extension, or be ascribed to both together. Here therefore I
understand by desire man's efforts, impulses, appetites and volitions
whatsoever, which after the manifold disposition of the same man be
themselves manifold and not seldom contrary to one another, so
that the man is dragged this way and that and knows not where to
turn.

2. Pleasure is the passage of a man from less to greater perfec
tion.

3. Pain is the passage of a man from greater to less perfection.
Explanation. I say passage : for pleasure is not perfection itself.

For if the man were bom with that perfection whereto he passes, he
would possess the same without the emotion of pleasure ; as more
plainly appears from the contrary emotion of pain. For no man can

1 ' The mind knows not itself, save so far as it perceives ideas of the affections
of the body.'

234 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

deny that pain consists in a passage to less perfection, and not in
lesser perfection itself, since a man cannot have pain in that he par
takes of some degree of perfection. Neither can we say that pain
consists in being deprived of a greater perfection ; for deprivation is
nothing. So the emotion of pain is an act, which can be no other
than that of passing to a less perfection, that is, an act whereby the
active power of man is diminished or hindered. See the Scholium
to Prop. 1 1 of this Part. For the definitions of cheerfulness, merri
ment, melancholy and grief, I pass them over, because they have
rather the nature of bodily affections, and are but kinds of pleasure
or pain.

4. Wonder is the imagination of somewhat whereon the mind
remains fixed because that particular imagination hath no sensible
connexion with others. See Prop. 52 with the Scholium.

Explanation. In the Scholium to Prop. 18, Part 2, we have shown
what is the cause that the mind from contemplating one thing straight
way falls into thinking of another ; namely because the images1 of those
things are mutually linked together in such order that one follows on
the other. Which cannot be supposed where the image of the thing
is novel ; so that in such case the mind will be holden in the con
templation of the same thing till it be determined by other causes to
think on other matters. Thus the imagination of a new object, if we
consider it in itself, is of like nature with others : and for this reason
I do not reckon wonder among the emotions, nor see any ground
why I should, since this distraction of the mind ariseth from no
positive cause that should draw the mind off from other things, but
only from this, that a cause is wanting for which the mind should
be determined to think on other things. Therefore I admit (as I
have noted in the Scholium to Prop, u) only three primitive or
primary emotions, namely, of pleasure, pain, and desire ; and I
have mentioned wonder for no other reason than that it is our
custom to call certain emotions derived from the three primitive
ones by different names when they have regard to objects of our
wonder, And for the same reason I am minded to add here a
definition of contempt.

5. Contempt is the imagination of a thing which so little moves
the mind that by the presence of the thing it is inclined rather to
imagine the qualities which are not in the thing than those which are
in it. See the scholium to Prop. 52.

1 In modern language we should say ideas or concepts.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 235

The definitions of worship and scorn (venerationis ct dcdignationis]
I here leave alone, since no emotions are to my knowledge named
after them.

6. Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external

cause.

Explanation. This definition clearly explains wherein love consists.
But that of the authors who define it as the will of the lover to unite
himself to the thing loved expresses not the nature of love but a
particular property thereof. And since the nature of love was not
well understood by these authors, they could not so much as form a
clear notion of that property ; and hence their definition hath been
generally esteemed pretty obscure. But it is to be observed that
when I say that this property is in love, to have a will for union with
the thing loved, I mean by will not an assent or conclusion, nor a free
resolve of the mind (for this I have shown to be a fiction in Prop. 48,
Part 2) ; nor yet the desire of being united to the thing loved when
it is away, or of continuing in its presence when it is by ; for love
may be conceived without either of these desires ; but by this will I
understand the content which arises in him that loves upon the
presence of the thing loved, whereby the pleasure of the lover is
strengthened or at least encouraged.1

7. Hate (or dislike) is pain accompanied by the idea of an
external cause.

Explanation. Whatever is to be observed here is easily collected
from the explanation to the foregoing definition, and seethe Scholium

to Prop. 13.

8. Inclination is pleasure accompanied by the idea of something
which is a casual occasion (per accident causa] of pleasure.

9. Aversion is pain accompanied by the idea of something
which is a casual occasion of pain. See as to these the Scholium to
Prop. 15.

10. Devotion is love towards one whom we admire.
Explanation. Admiration or wonder ariseth from the novelty of

the thing, as we showed in Prop. 52. If therefore it happen that we

1 Remembering that Spinoza's amor is taken in the widest possible sense, we
may doubt if the property in question is universal. A statesman or philanthropist
may do good to people hundreds or thousands of miles away who never heard of
his existence. When he thinks of the good he has done them collectively, his
feeling will be « laetitia concomitante idea causae externae ; ' but their individual
presence may be indifferent or even disagreeable to him. Spinoza would say that
even here there is some pleasure, but that it is overpowered by dislike arising
from other causes.

236 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

often imagine something we admire, we shall cease to admire it ;
and thus we see that devotion is apt to reduce itself to mere love.

u. Derision is pleasure arising from our imagination that some
thing we contemn is present in something which we hate.

Explanation. So far as we contemn a thing which we hate, we
deny existence of it (see Prop. 52, Schol.) and therefore (by Prop.
20) we are pleased. But since we assume that the man who derides
a thing also hates it, it follows that such pleasure is unsubstantial.
See the Schol. to Prop. 47.

12. Hope is an unconstant pleasure bred of the idea of a future
or past thing, of the issue 1 whereof we are to some extent in doubt.
See as to this Prop. 18, Schol. 2.

13. Fear is an unconstant pain bred of the idea of a future or
past thing, of the issue whereof we are to some extent in doubt.
See as to these Prop. 18, Schol. 2.

Explanation. From these definitions it follows that there is no hope
without fear, nor fear without hope. For whoever is in hope and
doubts of the issue of the matter, the same is assumed to imagine
somewhat that excludes the existence of the thing hoped for ; and
so far, therefore, to receive pain (Prop. 19) and, while he is in hope,
to fear that the desired thing may not happen. Again, he who is in
fear, that is, doubts of the issue of a thing he dislikes, also imagines
somewhat that excludes the existence of that thing ; and therefore is
pleased (Prop. 20), and so to that extent has hope that the thing may
not happen.

14. Confidence is pleasure bred of the idea of a future or past
thing concerning which our cause of doubt is removed.

15. Despair is pain bred of the idea of a future or past thing con
cerning which our cause of doubt is removed.

Explanation. Thus there ariseth of hope confidence, and of fear
despair, when our cause of doubt as to the issue of the thing is taken
away ; which happens because a man imagines a past or future thing
as present to him, and as such contemplates it ; or because he
imagines other matters which exclude the existence of those things
which threw him into doubt. For although we can never be truly
certain of the issue of particular things (by the Corollary to Prop. 31,
Part 2),2 yet it may so be that we have no doubt thereof. For we

1 Or ' happening. '

: ' Omnes res particulares contingentes et corruptibiles esse.' The Proposition
itself seems more in point : ' Nos de duratione rerum singularium quae extra nos
sunt nullam nisi admodum inadaequatam cognitionem habere possumus.'

THE NATURE OF MAN. 237

have shown (see the Scholium, Prop. 49, Part 2) that it is one thing
to have no doubt of a matter, another to have the certainty of it ;
and thus it may come to pass that the imagination of a past or future
thing may affect us with the same emotion of pleasure or pain as the
imagination of the thing when present : as we have proved in Prop.
1 8 of this Part, which see, as well as its second Scholium.

1 6. Joy is pleasure accompanied by the idea of something past
which happened beyond our expectation.

17. Disappointment or grief (conscientiac morsus) is pain accom
panied by the idea of something past which happened beyond our
expectation.

1 8. Pity (commiseratio) is pain accompanied by the idea of evil
happening to another whom we conceive to be like ourselves. See
the Scholia to Prop. 22 and 27 of this Part.

Explanation. Between pity and mercy (misericordiam) there
seems to be no difference, unless perhaps that pity has regard to
the emotion in particular, mercy to the disposition thereto. !

19. Approval (favor} is love toward some one who has done good
to another.

20. Indignation is hate towards some one who has done ill to
another.

Explanation. I know that these terms have a different meaning
in common use. But my purpose is not to explain the meaning of
words but the nature of things, and to signify the things by words
whose accustomed meaning is not wholly repugnant to that in which
I desire to use them. And so let it suffice to note this once for all.
As to the causes of these emotions, see Coroll. i, Prop. 27, and the
Schol. to Prop. 22 of this Part.

21. Over-esteem (existimatio) is to think too highly of a man for
love's sake.

22. Disparagement (despectus)\s to think too meanly of a man for
hate's sake.

Explanation. Over- esteem is thus an effect or property of love,
and disparagement of hate ; and so over-esteem may likewise be
thus denned, that it is love, so far forth as it moves a man to think too
highly of the thing loved, and on the other part disparagement
may be defined as hate, so far forth as it moves a man to think too
meanly of one whom he hates. See the Scholium to Prop. 26 of
I this Part.

1 It is even more difficult to find in English the difference indicated by Spinoza.
Auerbach uses Mitleid and Mitgefiihl.

238 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

23. Envy is hate, in so far as it disposeth a man to be sorry at
another's happiness, and contrariwise rejoice in his misfortune.

Explanation. To Envy we commonly oppose Mercy, which
accordingly may be thus defined, though against the usual meaning
of the word :

24. Mercy (or Good Will) is love, in so far as it disposeth a man
to rejoice in another's good fortune and contrariwise be sorry at his
ill fortune.

Explanation. See more of envy, Prop. 24, Schol. and 32, Schol.
in this Part. Now these be the emotions of pain, which the idea of
somewhat outside us doth accompany as being their cause, whether of
its own nature or by casual association (per acddens.) Hence I pass to
those which are accompanied by the idea of somewhat within us as a
cause.

25. Self-contentment is pleasure bred of a man's contemplating
himself and his own active power.

26. Humility is pain bred of a man's contemplating his own
impotence or infirmity.

Explanation. Self-contentment is opposed to humility, so far as
we understand by it a pleasure that arises from contemplating our
own active power. But so far as we also understand by it a pleasure
accompanied by the idea of some act which we conceive ourselves
to have performed by a free resolve of the mind, then it is the
opposite of repentance, which we define thus :

27. Repentance is pain accompanied by the idea of some act
which we conceive ourselves to have performed by a free resolve of
the mind.

Explanation. We have shown the causes of these emotions in the
Schol. to Prop. 51 of this Part, and Propp. 53, 54, and 55 and its
Scholium. As to the free resolve of the mind, see Prop. 35, Part 2,
Schol. But here it is also to be observed that 'tis no wonder that all
acts in general which by custom are called wrong are followed by
pain, and those which are called right by pleasure. For we may
easily comprehend from what has been above said that this chiefly
depends on education. Parents have so ordered it by reproving the
one sort of actions and often rebuking their children therefor, and
contrariwise commending and praising the other, that passions of pain
are joined with the one, but of pleasure with the other. And this is
likewise confirmed by actual experience. For custom and religion
be not for all men the same ; but what is holy with some is profane
with others, and what is honourable with some is base with others.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 239

So that according as every man is brought up, he repenteth of a
particular deed or maketh boast of the same.

28. Pride is to think too highly of oneself by reason of self-love.
Explanation. The difference of pride and over-esteem is that the

latter hath regard to an outward object, but pride to the man himself,
esteeming himself overmuch. Now as over-esteem is an effect or
property of love, so is pride of selfishness, and may therefore be also
thus denned, that it is self-love or self-contentment, in so far as it
disposeth one to think too highly of himself. See Prop. 26, Schol.
To this emotion there is none contrary. For no man thinks too
meanly of himself through hating himself; nay there is no man
thinks too meanly of himself, so far as he conceives that he cannot
do this or that thing. For whatever a man conceives he cannot do,
that he necessarily conceives, and by that notion he is so disposed
that in truth he cannot do that which he conceives he cannot do.
For so long as he conceives that he cannot do a thing, so long is his
action not determined to that thing ; and therefore so long is it
impossible that he should do it. But now if we consider such things
as depend merely on opinion, we can conceive how it may be that a
man should think too meanly of himself. It may happen that a
man in sorrow, while he considers his own infirmity, imagines that he
is despised by everybody ; and this while other men have nothing
less in their thoughts than despising him. Again, a man may think
too meanly of himself if he deny somewhat of himself with regard
to a future time whereof he is uncertain ; as if he should suppose
that he can have no certain conceptions, or can desire and perform
nothing but wicked and base things, and the like. Again we may say
that a man thinks too meanly of himself when we see that for exceed
ing fear of shame he will not adventure what others being his equals
will. Thus we have an emotion fit to be opposed to pride, which I
shall call dejection. For as pride is bred of self-contentment, so is
dejection of humility ; and accordingly we define it thus :

29. Dejection (abiectio] is to think too meanly of oneself by
' reason of displeasure.

Explanation. Nevertheless pride is wont to be opposed to
humility : but then we consider the effects of them rather than their
nature. We call that man proud, who boasts exceedingly (see Prop.
30, Schol.), who talks of nothing but excellence in himself and faults
in others, who would fain have precedence of all others, and who
affects the dignity and apparel used by those whose estate is much
above his own. Whereas we call him humble, who often blushes, who

240 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

confesses his own faults and tells of other men's excellence, who gives
place to all men, and who is of a downcast carriage and negligent
of his apparel. Howbeit these emotions, I say humility and dejec
tion, are very scarce. For man's nature, considered in itself, strives
against them with all its power (see Propp. 15 and 54) ; and hence
those who pass for being most downcast and humble are oftentimes
the most self-seeking and envious.

30. Honour (gloria) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of some
action of our own which we suppose to be praised by others.

31. Shame is pain accompanied by the idea of some action which
we suppose to be blamed by others.

Explanation. As to these see the Scholium to Prop. 30 of this
Part. I shall here observe the difference between shame and
modesty. Shame is the pain following a deed whereof one is ashamed ;
but modesty is the apprehension or fear of shame, whereby a man is
restrained from any disgraceful action. To modesty is commonly
opposed shamelessness, which is in truth not an emotion, as I shall
show in due place. But the names of the emotions, as I have
already noted, go more to their application than to their nature.
Thus much of the emotions of pleasure and pain, which I have now
expounded as I purposed : and I go on to those which I ascribe to
Desire.

32. Regret is the desire or appetite of possessing something, which
is nourished by the remembrance of that thing, and at the same
time checked by the remembrance of other things which exclude the
existence of the thing so desired.

Explanation. When we remember anything, (as we have often
said before), this of itself disposeth us to regard the thing with the
same emotion as if it were actually present. But this disposition or
effect, at least in waking hours, is mostly constrained by ideas of
things which exclude the existence of the thing remembered by us.
When therefore we remember a thing which affects us with any sort
of pleasure, we at once endeavour to regard it with the same emotion
of pleasure as if it were present ; and this endeavour is thereupon
restrained by the remembrance of things which exclude its existence.
Wherefore regret is in truth a pain opposite to that pleasure which
arises from the absence of a thing we hate, as to which see Prop.
47, Schol. But since the name of regret seemeth to have regard to
desire, I reckon this emotion among those of desire.

33. Emulation is the desire of something excited in us by our
conception that others have the like desire.

THE NATURE OF MAN 241

Explanation. When one runs away at seeing others run or fears
at seeing others fear, or on seeing that another hath burnt his hand,
draws in his own hand and moves as if his own hand were burnt, we
say that he imitates the emotion of the other, but not that he
emulates him : not because we know of any difference between the
causes of emulation and of imitation, but because use will so have it
that we speak of emulation only in him who imitates what he deems
honourable, useful, or agreeable, As for the cause of emulation, see
Prop. 2 7 of this Part and the Scholium. And why this emotion doth
mostly go in couples with envy, see Prop. 32 with the Scholium
thereto.

34. Thankfulness or gratitude is a desire or bent prompted by
love, whereby we endeavour to do good to him who has conferred
benefit on us in the like disposition. See Prop. 39, with the [first]
Scholium to Prop. 41 of this Part.

35. Benevolence is the desire of doing good to one whom we
pity. See Prop. 27, Schol. [2].1

36. Anger is a desire whereby we are impelled through hatred to
do ill to one whom we hate. See Prop. 39.

3 7. Revenge is a desire whereby we are stirred up through mutual
hatred to do ill to one who hath done ill to us with the like disposi
tion. See Prop. 40, Coroll. 2, and the Scholium thereon.

38. Cruelty or barbarity (saevitia) is the desire whereby any one
is impelled to do evil to one whom we love or pity.

Explanation. To cruelty is opposed clemency, which is not a
passion, but the power of the mind whereby a man restrains anger
and revenge.

39. Fear is the desire of avoiding at the cost of a lesser evil a
greater one which we apprehend. See Prop. 39, Schol.

40. Daring is a desire whereby one is impelled to do somewhat
attended with a danger which his peers are afraid to undergo.

41. Cowardice is ascribed to him whose desire is checked by the
fear of a danger which his peers dare to undergo .

Explanation. Cowardice therefore is naught else than the fear of
an evil which most men are not wont to fear ; for which cause I
reckon it not with the emotions of desire. Yet I have chosen to
explain it here, because, in so far as we attend to the desire, there
is a true opposition betwixt it and daring.

42. Consternation is ascribed to him whose desire to avoid evil
is checked by amazement at the evil he fears.

1 Quoted above, p. 228, note.
R

242 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Explanation. Consternation is therefore a kind of cowardice.
But since consternation is bred of a double fear, it may be more con
veniently defined as fear which holds a man in such bewilderment or
distraction that he cannot remove the evil from him. I say bewilder
ment, so far as we understand his desire to remove the evil to be
checked by amazement. And I say distraction, in so far as we con
ceive the same desire to be checked by the fear of another ill which
equally vexeth him : whereby it comes to pass that he knows not
against which of the two to defend himself. See the Scholia to
Propp. 39 and 52. As to cowardice and daring, see Prop. 51, Schol.

43. Civility or deference (humanitas seu modestid] is the desire of
doing what pleaseth men and omitting what displeaseth them.

44. Ambition is an immoderate desire for honour.
Explanation. Ambition is a desire whereby all the emotions are

nourished and fortified (by Prop. 27 and 31 of this Part) ; and there
fore this emotion can scarce be overcome. For so long as a man is
holden by any desire, he is of necessity holden by this withal. * The
more a man excels,' saith Cicero, ' the more is he led by honour : yea
the philosophers write books of despising honour and glory, and set
their names to them.'

45. Luxury is unrestrained desire or love (which you will) of
feasting.

46. Drunkenness is unrestrained desire and love of drinking.

47. Avarice is unrestrained desire and love of wealth.

48. Lust is in the like manner desire and love in bodily inter
course.

Explanation. Whether this last desire be restrained or not, it is
commonly called lust. And these five emotions as noted in the
Schol. to Prop. 56) have no contraries. For deference is itself a kind
of ambition, as to which see Prop. 29, Schol. For temperance, sober
ness, and chastity, I have already noted of these also that they express
not a passion but a power of the mind. And though it may be that an
avaricious, ambitious, or timid man shall abstain from excess in these
kinds, yet avarice, ambition, and fear are not contraries to luxury, drunk
enness, or lust.1 For an avaricious man is oftentimes eager to stuff
himself with food and drink at another man's charges. An ambitious
man, so long as he hopes it may be hid, will stint himself in nothing ;
indeed, if he live in drunken and debauched company, his ambition
will but make him the more prone to those vices. As for the timid

Castitati in the Latin text by an obvious slip.

THE NATURE OF MAN. 243

man, he doth what he would not. For though a miser should cast
his wealth into the sea to escape death, yet he is a miser still ; and
so if a lustful man is grieved that he cannot follow his bent, he ceases
not thereby to be lustful. And in general these emotions regard not
so much the acts of feasting, drinking, and so forth, as the inward
appetite and liking. So that nothing can be opposed to these
emotions but high-mindedness and valour (generositatem et animosita-
tem], whereof more presently.1

The definitions of jealousy and other perturbations of the mind I
pass over in silence, as well because they spring from the compound
ing of the emotions already denned, as because they mostly have no
special names ; which is a sign that for the uses of life it sufficeth to
have a general knowledge of them. And it is established from those
definitions of the emotions which we have expounded that they all
have their rise from Desire, Pleasure, or Pain ; or rather that there
be none beside these three, every one whereof is wont to be called by
divers names after the divers presentments and tokens of them in
outward operation. Considering these primitive emotions and that
which we have above said of the nature of the mind, we may now
thus define the emotions, so far as they have regard to the mind
alone.

GENERAL DEFINITION OF THE EMOTIONS.

EMOTION, which is called a passion (pathema) of the soul, is a con
fused idea whereby the mind affirms a greater or less faculty of exist
ence 2 in its body or some part thereof than it had before, and on
the occurrence of which the mind itself is determined to think on one
thing more than another.

Explanation. First, I say that emotion or passion in the soul is a

confused idea. For we have shown (Prop. 3 of this Part) that the mind

suffers only so far as it hath inadequate or confused ideas. Next, I

say ' whereby the mind affirms a greater or less power of existence in

i its body or some part thereof than it had before.' For all ideas of

i [other] bodies which we have denote rather the existing disposition

1 Cp. Prop. 59 of this Part, Schol. Animositas and generositas are the two
species of fortitude. 'Per animositatem intelligo cupiditatem qua unusquisque

( conatur suum esse ex solo rationis dictamine conservare. Per generositatem autem
cupiditatem intelligo qua unusquisque ex solo rationis dictamine conatur reliquos
homines iuvare et sibi amicitia iungere.'

2 Existendi vis really means neither more nor less than existentia. See p. 218,
above.

R 2

244 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

of our own body than the nature of the external body (Part 2, Prop.
1 6, Cor. 2). But the idea wherein an emotion really consists must
denote or express the disposition of the body or some part there
of, because the body's active power or faculty of existing is increased or
diminished, forwarded or hindered. It is to be observed that when I
say ' a greater or less faculty of existence than before,' I intend not
that the mind compares the present disposition of the body with a
past one, but that the idea wherein the being of the emotion doth
consist affirms of the body something which in fact involves more or
less of reality than before. And since the nature of the mind consists
in this, that it affirms the real present existence of its body (Part 2,
Prop, ii and 13) and we mean by perfection the nature of the thing
itself; hence it follows that the mind passes to a greater or less perfec
tion when it happens to it to affirm somewhat of its body or some part
thereof which involves more or less of reality than before. When
therefore I said above that the mind's power of thinking is increased
or diminished, I desired to have only this meaning, that the mind
formed an idea of its own body or some part thereof which expressed
more or less reality than it had formerly affirmed of the same body.
For the dignity of ideas and the present power of thinking are
measured by the dignity of the object. Lastly I have added : ' and
on the occurrence of which the mind itself is determined to think on
one thing more than another/ that besides the nature of pleasure and
pain, which the first part of the definition explains, I might also
express that of desire.

THE BURDEN OF MAN, 245

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BURDEN OF MAN.

Derm alle Kraft dringt vorwarts in die Weite,

Zu leben und zu wirken hier und dort ;
Dagegen engt und hemmt von jeder Seite

Der Strom der Welt und reisst uns mit sich fort ;
In diesem innern Sturm und aussern Streite

Vernimmt der Geist ein schwer verstanden Wort :
Von der Gewalt, die alle Wesen bindet,
Befreit der Mensch sich, der sich iiberwindet.

GOETHE, Die Geheimnisse.

Once read thy own breast right,

And thou hast done with fears ;
Man gets no other light,

Search he a thousand years.
Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine.

MATTHEW ARNOLD, Empedocles on Etna.

HAVING concluded his purely scientific analysis of the springs
of action and passion, Spinoza proceeds to expound in the
fourth Part of the Ethics ' the slavery of man, or the power of
the emotions.' In a short preface he explains the notions of
good and evil, as he conceives them.

' When a man hath determined to make something and brought
the same to pass, not only that man himself will call his work perfect,
but also every one that rightly knows or conceives himself to know
the mind and aim which the author of that work had. For example,
if a man shall see a particular work (which I assume to be not yet
finished) and knows that the aim of its author is to build a house, he
will call the house imperfect, but contrariwise perfect whenever he
sees the work brought to the end which its author proposed to make
of it. But if a man sees a work the like whereof he hath never seen,

246 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

nor knows the mind of the workman, 'tis plain he cannot tell whether
that work be perfect or not.'

A sentence, one may remark in passing, which deserves
much meditation on the part of those who discuss natural
theology, but has been before the world these two centuries
without producing much result : and if we pause awhile to
discuss the idea contained in it the digression will be less than
it seems. For on this depends Spinoza's view of ethical good
and evil, and consequently his whole theory of ethics.

The argument from design in all its common forms, and
most of the obvious objections to it, proceed on the assump
tion that we have some independent knowledge of what the
designs of nature are or may be expected to be. What we
find in nature, especially animated nature, is fitness in various
degrees for various purposes ; organs of sense for example,
ranging from a rudimentary state in the lower animals to the
delicate and complex apparatus possessed by the highest. To
say that this comes of design, and that the particular degree of
fitness was designed in each case, is a pure assumption as far
as the evidence of nature goes. I speak of degrees of fitness ;
for to talk of absolute fitness in nature, as popular teleology
does or recently did, is merely to disregard the facts. Every
thing that exists is indeed in one sense the fittest possible ;
since if it were not so, it would not be the thing existing then
and there, but the place would be filled by something else
which was fitter under the given conditions. In other words,
existence is not a bare fact but a continuing process, and at
every moment of the process the particular set of conditions
has one and only one possible result. This was long ago seen
in a general way by Hume, and has been fixed as a distinct
scientific conception by Mr. Darwin's discovery of it in a most
important and striking concrete form. But if we assume a par
ticular designed purpose, as seeing in the case of the eye, and
inquire if the means are as perfect as they conceivably might
be, we shall generally if not always find that they are not.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 247

Thus the human eye, considered as an optical instrument, has
more than one grave defect : and the human ankle-joint is
inconveniently weak in proportion to the strain thrown upon it
by man's erect attitude in standing and walking. If, again, we
say that the greatest fitness under given conditions is equiva
lent to absolute fitness, and is in fact the standard of perfec
tion in human workmanship, it must be observed that in the
case of human workmanship we know that the workman did
not make his conditions : or, if there be conditions as to which
we are uncertain how far they were within his control, we
suspend our judgment as to the part of his work affected
by them. Now in the case of the universe we have not this
knowledge, and the suspense of judgment must needs be in
definite. We cannot separate the work from the conditions.
In order to arrive at any final judgment we ought to know
whether the conditions themselves were given with any and
what design, and if so, whether or not subject to other condi
tions. And thus the inquiry would become endless, and we
should never have anything solid to show for it. In short,
the frame of nature is what it is, neither more nor less. If we
believe it to be the work of an extremely powerful being, of
intelligence and activities more or less analogous to our own,
then we must also believe that it was and is intended to be
just what it is. What inferences of any practical value could
be drawn from that conclusion is rather too wide a question
to be taken in the course of a digression. Some of those which
might be drawn by an observer confining himself strictly to
the evidence would be as follows : that if the being in question
took any pleasure in his operations, it could only be the purely
intellectual pleasure of working out a set of fixed rules, which
he might possibly be supposed to have fixed by his own choice
with that pleasure in view ; that he had no conception of pain,
and was therefore regardless of the amount of it that might
be involved in executing the grand scheme of the universe
(for one would not gratuitously ascribe malice to him) ; and

248 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

that if that scheme had any ulterior object, it was not the
happiness of living creatures generally or of any particular
species of them. These inferences, however, are not such as
expounders of natural theology either desire or profess to
arrive at ; and, as I do not myself attach any particular validity
to the assumptions on which they would depend, it seems
needless to dwell on them.

But now let us assume that we believe in design on
independent grounds. Will this take us much farther ? We
still cannot criticize the works of nature by the analogy of the
productions of human art without knowing to what extent
the objects and conditions are similar : we shall therefore still
find ourselves in the same condition of absolute suspense. If
we take it as known from other sources that the universe is a
work of perfect wisdom and goodness, and perfectly adapted
to fulfil some purpose which does not appear on the face of
things, and which we can only partly understand, then we
have after a sort an account of the whole matter. But it is
an account which the witness of nature itself cannot either
add to or confirm in any way. Detailed criticism and
detailed apologies — for such is the tone of modern natural
theology at times — are alike in the air, or rather in vacua.
It is not uncommon to speak of the wastefulness of nature as
if it were something requiring an excuse. But why is it
esteemed a merit in human operations to effect the desired
result with the least possible expenditure of work and
materials ? Plainly because the available work and materials
are limited. If the resources of the universe were at one's
disposal, there would be no occasion for economy. So far as
we can form any expectation in the matter, we might
reasonably expect a magnified human intelligence command- f
ing all the powers of nature to be at least as wasteful as
nature actually is. The stability or instability of the exist
ing order of nature cannot, in like manner, be judged perfect
or imperfect unless we know whether or not the order was

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 249

Intended to be permanent. It was an accepted opinion till
very lately that the solar system was a self-maintaining and
self- compensating machine which, if left to itself, would go
on for ever. And, strangely enough, it was commonly held
by the same persons who extolled this as a perfection that
the solar system, or at any rate the part of it inhabited by
mankind, was intended to last only a few thousand years,
and at the end of that time to be destroyed. On their
assumptions the designer of the solar system acted like a
builder who should put a stone house where a wooden shed
would have done as well : unless, indeed, it were a mere
display of magnificence like that of a barbaric prince at
whose command whole palaces rise for the service of a day's
festival, and are swept away with all their ornaments when
the feast is over. For precisely the same reasons, it would be
absurd to say that the instability now discovered by science
in the constitution of the solar system is any mark of imper
fection. And if we believe that we have evidence or pre
sumption from other quarters of a design tending to the
dissolution of the present state of nature, then it is quite fair
to speculate on the physical means (imperfect vortex-atoms
or the like) by which it might be carried out. Again, a
designer may be limited in his choice of means either by
external conditions or by some reason of his own ; and of
these conditions or reasons the spectator may know nothing.
In the case of the sensible world and its order it is certain
(apart from supernatural information) that we know nothing
of them whatever. All our ideas of design and perfection are
derived from the efforts of man, a finite being, working for
definite objects and with such instruments as he can procure :
and the attempt to find something answering to them in the
constitution of the universe leads to nothing but insoluble
perplexities. All this was most clearly seen by Spinoza, and
the mastery of his conceptions, whether learnt from himself
or from some other teacher, is the first condition of any free

250 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

and rational treatment of the questions which beset the
boundaries of our positive knowledge. I do not mean that it
is necessary to accept Spinoza's ideas, but that it is necessary
to know of their existence and to understand them.

The primary meaning of such terms as perfect and imper
fect is according to Spinoza not only relative, but relative to
the accomplishment of some particular design. But the
formation of general ideas leads men to take their general
idea of a species or kind as a standard, and regard every de
parture from it as an imperfection. And this way of think
ing and speaking is applied indiscriminately to natural and to
artificial productions, though we cannot ascribe design, or
therefore apply any test of perfection in this sense, to nature
as a whole.

' For that eternal and infinite being which we call God or nature
acts by the same necessity wherewith it exists . . . so that the reason
or cause why God or nature acts, and why he exists, is one and the
same. As therefore he exists not for the sake of any end, so he acts
for the sake of none ; but hath as well of existing as of acting no
beginning nor end. That which is called a final cause is nothing but
the desire of man itself, considered as the origin or primary cause
of anything. As when we say that to be inhabited was the final
cause of this or that house, then 'tis plain we understand merely this,
that a man having conceived in his mind the conveniency of dwelling
in a house, was thereupon desirous to build it.'

Perfection and imperfection, then, are relative notions or
ways of thinking, dependent on our classification and com
parison of things. If we try to apply them on a universal
scale, the only class-notion remaining with us for the purpose
is the genus generalissimum of mere being, and we must mea
sure perfection by amount of being or reality. Thus Spinoza
explains his own former definition of perfection as identical
with reality.1 And apparently he regards it, or tends in this
place to regard it, as only a particular aspect of things to

1 Eth, ii. def. 6.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 251

finite minds that one should appear to have 'plus entitatis
seu realitatis ' than another. But on this he is not explicit.

The ethical notions of good and evil are the notions of
perfection and imperfection, as applied to human character
and conduct by means of a normal idea or standard of man.
That the terms are in themselves relative is obvious.

' Music is good for a melancholic patient, bad for a man in grief ;
for a deaf man it is neither good nor bad. But though this be so,
yet these words are to be kept in use. For since we desire to form
an idea of man as a type of human nature to be set before us, it
will be convenient to keep these words in the sense I have mentioned.
By good I shall therefore understand hereafter that which we are
assured is a means for approaching more and more nearly to the
pattern of human nature we set before ourselves ; and by evil that
which we are assured is a hindrance to our copying of the same pattern.
Further, we shall speak of men as more or less perfect, as they
approach this pattern more or less nearly.'

Some definitions follow, of which we need only say that,
by a distinction now first introduced, a contingent thing is
defined as that which is not known to be necessary or impos
sible in respect of itself, or which we can equally well conceive
to exist or not to exist ; a possible thing as one not known to
be necessary or impossible in respect of its conditions, or as
to which we do not know if the conditions required for its
production are fulfilled. There is a single axiom : ' No par
ticular thing is found in nature which is not exceeded in
power and strength by some other : but whatsoever thing be
taken, another more powerful can be found, whereby the first
may be destroyed.'

Man is a part of nature ; his powers are limited and sub
ject to be overmastered by external causes. On external
causes, too, depends the strength of human passions ; for pas
sion is the modification of the mind under an external cause
Hence flows a proposition of the first practical importance,
that ' emotion cannot be controlled or removed, save by a

252 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

contrary emotion stronger than that which is to be controlled.' l
Repeatedly one is led to marvel at Spinoza's critics, and ask
oneself if they really have read him : and here one stops to
doubt whether this most true and pregnant statement can
ever have been considered by those who represent Spinoza as
a framer of mere intellectual puzzles, having no root in the
deeper part of man's feelings. It is not insignificant that the
proof, which however would not add much to the conviction
of a modern reader, is in form physiological. Hence know
ledge, as such, is incompetent to restrain the passions : it
can have that effect only in so far as it is an emotion.2
And in fact knowledge of good or evil is in the nature of
pleasure or pain ; for it is by reference to supposed utility,
which involves reference to pleasure and pain, that we deter
mine any particular thing to be good or evil. Thus ' the
knowledge of good and evil is nothing else than an emotion
of pleasure or pain, in so far as we are conscious thereof.'
Observe that this knowledge, or in English it would be better
to say judgment, is not as yet assumed to be correct Or, if
we say that pleasure as such is always good, and pain as such
always bad, which Spinoza does say later (Pr. 41 of this Part),
we may affirm that an immediate judgment of good or evil is
correct in itself, but not necessarily so with regard to concomi
tants and consequences. But even if we have a true judgment
(ucra boni et malt cognitio] the emotion produced by it may
not prevail over other emotions conflicting with it. For emo
tion due to a present exciting cause is, other things being
equal, stronger than that which proceeds from contemplation
of something distant in time or place : and so memory and
expectation are themselves more intense in proportion to the
nearness of their objects ; unless indeed the remoteness in
time of the different objects compared be such that for our
imagination both are practically infinite.3 Again, that which
we conceive as necessary affects us more strongly than that

1 Eth. iv. 7. 2 Prop I4 3 propt 9j I0>

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 253

which is conceived as possible or contingent. In this and
other ways the desires arising from a true knowledge of good
and evil may be restrained or suppressed by others arising
from divers contrary emotions. And in particular ' the desire
arising from the knowledge of good and evil, so far as this
knowledge has regard to the future, may easily be constrained
or extinguished by the desire of things which are agreeable
in the present.' l Hence the weakness of human nature and
the difficulty of obeying the dictates of reason ; hence the
danger of wrong-doing in the face of knowledge, whereof the
Preacher said, He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
We see that Spinoza felt profoundly and acutely the need of
understanding being ' touched with emotion ' before it can
bring forth the fruit of good living. But his purpose is not to
discourage men from well-doing.

' This I say not for any such purpose as to conclude that ignor
ance is to be chosen before knowledge, or that a fool and a man of
understanding differ nothing as to the control of their passions ; but
because it is needful to know as well the power as the weakness of
our nature, that we may determine what reason can and cannot do
in controlling the passions. And in this part, as I have promised,
I shall treat only of human weakness. For of the power of reason
over the passions I am minded to treat apart.' 2

Leaving it, then, for future consideration how the power
of following reason is to be acquired, Spinoza proceeds to set
forth what the precepts of reason are. He begins with a sum
mary introduction which gives the leading ideas of his ethical
system in a wonderfully short compass.

'Since reason demands nothing against nature, it therefore
demands that every man do love himself, seek his own interest (I
mean that which is truly so), and desire whatsoever truly leads a man
to greater perfection ; and generally that every man endeavour, so far
as in him lies, to maintain his own being. And this is as necessary a
truth as that the whole is greater than its part. Then forasmuch as
virtue is nothing else than acting by the proper laws of one's own

f;' 1 Prop. 1 6. 2 pr0p j^ Schol.

254 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

nature, and no man endeavours to maintain his own being otherwise
than by those laws : it follows in the first place that the foundation
of virtue is this very endeavour, and that happiness doth consist in
a man's having power to maintain his own being. Secondly it follows
that virtue is to be desired for its own sake, and nothing prefer
able or more useful can be found for whose sake it should be desired.
And thirdly, it follows that men who kill themselves are infirm of
mind, and merely overcome by external causes repugnant to their
own nature. l Again, it follows from the fourth postulate of the second
Part 2 that we never can bring it to pass that we need nothing outside
us to maintain our being, or live without any conversation with
things that are outside us ; and if moreover we consider our own
mind, our understanding would surely be less perfect if the mind
were alone and understood not anything beyond itself. Thus there be
many things outside us, which are useful for us and therefore to be de
sired. Among these none more excellent can be thought of than such
as wholly agree with our own nature : since if two individuals of the
same nature are joined together, they make a new individual twice as
powerful as either. Nothing, therefore, is so useful to man as man ;
nothing more excellent, I say, can be sought by men towards main
taining their being than that all should so agree in all things as that
the minds and bodies of all should make up as it were one mind and
one body, and all together strive to maintain their being to the best
of their power, and all together seek the common interest of all.
Hence it follows that men who are governed by reason, or who seek
their own interest after the guidance of reason, desire nothing for
themselves which they desire not for other men ; and therefore also
they be just, faithful, and honourable.'

This is given expressly as a short preliminary sketch, in
order to obviate the prejudices of those who might be disposed
to think ' that this principle, namely, that every man's duty is
to seek his own interest, is the beginning of wickedness, and
not of virtue and righteousness.' But the outlines of an
ethical system are quite distinctly laid down ; and we may
conveniently pause here to notice the singular resemblance to

1 It is difficult to see why a point of detail like this should be made so pro
minent. Can Spinoza have been thinking of Uriel Da Costa ?

' The human body has need for its maintenance of many other bodies,
whereby it is constantly as it were refashioned. '

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 255

Stoic doctrine. A life according to reason, which consists in
following out the law of one's own nature, or self-preservation
in the fullest sense, was precisely that which the Stoics aimed
at. What they meant by following nature, however vague
the phrase appears in itself, is the same that Spinoza means
by suum esse conservare. It is the putting forth and main
tenance of the activities proper to the individual and the species.
With them no less than with Spinoza self-conservation was
the ultimate spring of action.

For them, likewise, it is a fundamental axiom that only
in the society of his fellow-men can man effectually preserve
his being, fulfil the law of his specific welfare, or, as they said,
' follow nature.' Both. the Stoics and Spinoza seem to treat
the social character of man as a fact of common experience
not open to contradiction and requiring no proof. Their
morality is so far egoistic that they admit as a first principle
that every man must seek his own welfare. But it is not
selfish ; for the very first of their mediate axioms is the con
tradiction of selfishness. The first condition of a man's wel
fare is the welfare of the society of which he is a part, or, as
the Stoics said, a limb. Practical morality is therefore not
individual but social, and the reasonable man can find his
own weal only by pursuing the common weal and doing good
to his fellow-men.

There are other points of coincidence, for example the
determinism which is hardly less prominent in the Stoics
than in Spinoza, and the stress laid on the active nature of
virtue. On the other hand there are great differences in the
general philosophical bases of the two systems. The Stoics
were devoted adherents of teleology, which Spinoza wholly
rejects ; and to follow nature was to them the same thing as
to follow reason, because they held nature, both in its general
constitution and in specific forms, to be eminently reasonable.
Spinoza could not speak of 'following Nature' as they did,
though he speaks with them of following reason, and coin-

256 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

cides with Stoic language even in the detail of ascribing free
dom as a special honourable attribute to the wise or reason
able man. * The wise man alone is free, and the fool is a
slave ' was one of the famous Stoic paradoxes : a paradox
for this reason, that wisdom in the Stoic sense is an ideal
state of passionless perfection which hardly anyone attains,
and whoever has not attained this wisdom is yet in the outer
darkness of folly. A form of speech like this might easily
have been picked up by Spinoza from Horace or Cicero ; but
as to the deeper resemblances, I do not think they are to be
ascribed to imitation, for the very reason that they go so far
down. It is certain that Spinoza's acquaintance with Greek
philosophy was superficial ; anything he knew of the Stoics
must have been at second-hand, and the resemblances in
question have much more the air of being due to independent
work on parallel lines than of being derived from second-hand
information. One very characteristic point of Spinoza's
ethical theory, the doctrine that emotion can be controlled
only by emotion, is entirely absent from the teaching of the
Stoics. They trust to pure reason to furnish not only light
but heat and motive power, thus ignoring the strength and
bondage of the passions, the ' affectuum vires ' on which
Spinoza so minutely and pitilessly dwells. The difference
may not be of great practical importance if we compare the
two systems as working systems of morality, in which point
of view they seem almost identical. For the mental disci
pline and contemplation recommended by the Stoics are of a
kind well fitted to produce the moral emotion required by
Spinoza and all the best modern moralists as a necessary
condition of righteousness, or rather the constant reserve of
moral emotion which we call a moral temper. And, if the
disposition be produced, it matters little for practical purposes
whether it finds its due place in the scientific account of the
process given by the teachers. This temper of moral devo
tion, if one may so call it, and the means of maintaining it,

BURDEN OF MAN. 257

were indeed recognized as of importance ; for example, they
are not unfrequently considered by Marcus Aurelius ; but
these reflexions go side by side with positive statements that
the mere knowledge of good and evil suffices to overcome
evil impulses; or in other words that vice is nothing but
ignorance.

The scientific advance of Spinoza's doctrine upon this is
very great, and is of itself enough to establish his independent
merit.1

The following propositions, in which Spinoza works out
the doctrines briefly sketched in the passage last translated,
fall into four groups.

The first deals with self-maintenance as the foundation of
virtue (Prop. 19-25) : the second with intelligence as the
foundation of ethical judgment (26-28) : the third with the
common nature and interests of men as the ground of social
ethics (29-37) : the fourth considers in detail what bodily and
mental affections are good or bad with reference to man's
common weal, and herein of the conduct and duties of the
reasonable man (38-73) : lastly, the ethical maxims are
collected and restated in an Appendix.

First, the self-maintaining activity is the foundation of
virtue. For virtue is active power, and power is the affirma
tion of the agent's existence. Living must come before living
well, and no man can desire a virtuous life without also
desiring life itself. ' Virtuous action, as such (ex virtute
absolute agere), is in us nothing else than to act, live, or main
tain one's own being (these three are all one) according to
reason and on the footing of seeking our own interest.' 2

Now the self-affirmation of the mind is understanding,
since the proper nature of the human mind is to understand :
so that the self-maintaining endeavour which is the begin-

1 On the resemblance and contrast between Spinoza and the Stoics, compare
Trendelenburg, Histor. Heilrage, iii. 396-397.

2 Prop. 24.

258 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

ning of virtue is an endeavour after understanding. Hence
good is whatever helps the understanding, evil whatever
hinders it ; and the highest good is the knowledge of God,
the most complete object of knowledge and the condition of
all other knowledge and existence. To know God (in other
words to know the order of nature and regard the universe
as orderly) is the highest function of the mind : and know
ledge, as the perfect form of the mind's normal activity, is
good for its own sake and not as a means.

The attempt to reduce the proper nature and function of
the mind to pure intelligence, which is made in Pr. 26, is open
to much criticism. It depends on the doctrine that all real
action is a function of intellect (Part 3, Pr. 3) : but even
assuming this, the self-maintaining effort of the mind ' qua-
tenus ratiocinatur ' is briefly taken as equivalent to and in
volving the maintenance or welfare of the whole man. The
supremacy of reason is insufficiently explained and not
proved at all. Spinoza's position here is no doubt connected
with the Peripatetic theory of the active intellect, and pre
pares the way for the peculiar developments of the fifth Part
of the Ethics.

The next group of propositions leads up to the social
grounds of morality by a chain of formal proof which is more
ingenious than convincing, and seems not even formally invul
nerable. For instance, ' commune aliquid nobiscum ' in Prop.
29 appears to be used in a different sense from 'cum nostra
natura commune 'in Prop. 30: and Prop. 30 is difficult to follow.
It is easy to understand the position of Prop. 29, that we can
not be affected for good or harm by anything which has not
' commune aliquid nobiscum : ' e.g. bodily hurt must be in
flicted by a material body. But how then can we say with
Prop. 30 that a thing is never hurtful ' per id quod cum nos
tra natura commune habet ? ' One human body may hurt
another very much, by knocking it down or otherwise. If
we say that this depends not on the assailing body being

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 259

human, but on its being a solid body, the common properties
of matter still remain: A runs against B and hurts himself:
it is true he might have hurt himself as much or more by
running against a post. But in any case the properties of
mass and impenetrability are common to A's body and B's,
and are of the essence of the hurt that follows. For if parts
of A's body and B's could be in the same place at once, there
would be no resistance, no violent compression of the collid
ing parts, and no hurt. Or if natura includes, as it probably
does, the amount and distribution of energy in the particular
material system affected (cp. Prop. 39), still the difference or
incongruousness between the disturbed system and the
external body is not of kind but of degree. There is still
' aliquid commune.' I think it must be allowed that Spinoza's
way of talking of natura in this and similar passages is not
free from residual entanglements of scholasticism.

Spinoza's object is to show that men disagree only in so
far as they are swayed by passion, and agree in so far as they
are governed by reason. Passion being an infirmity or nega
tion, men cannot be said to agree in it ; just as it is an abuse
of language to say that white and black are similar in not
being red. The counter-proposition that ' in so far as. men
live according to reason, they always and necessarily agree,'
is supported by an appeal to experience which is more satis
factory than the formal reasoning.

' Experience likewise bears witness to our proposition every day,
so clearly and abundantly that it is a common speech, that man is
as a God to man. Yet it seldom happens that men live according
to reason ; but such is their fashion that they mostly bear ill will and
do mischief to one another. Nevertheless they cannot endure a life
of solitude, so that the definition of man as a social animal hath been
in general approved : as indeed it is the truth of the matter that far
more convenience than hurt arises from the common fellowship of
men ; (i.e. even when they do not live according to 'reason). ' Where
fore let the satirists make sport of human affairs as much as they will ;
let theologians decry them ; let misanthropes do their utmost to

s 2

260 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

extol a rude and churlish life, despising men, and admiring the
brutes : yet men shall find that their needs are much best satisfied
by mutual help, and that only by joining their strength they can
escape the dangers that everywhere beset them ; not to say how much
more excellent it is and worthy of our knowledge to consider the
actions of men than of beasts.' ]

Passages of this kind give to Spinoza's system- — strange
as this may appear to such as know it only at second-hand—
the character of a morality of common sense : and herein he
shows an affinity to Aristotle's cast of thought which in this
particular place is conspicuous. The position that good men
are naturally friends, and that theirs is the best and only
durable friendship, is dwelt upon with some fulness in the
Eighth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics.2 And Aristotle
calls to witness the ordinary experience of reasonable men in
very much the same way as Spinoza. In this case imitation
or. derivation is wholly out of the question : Spinoza knew
Aristotle only in the distorted version given by so-called
Aristotelian philosophy. The work of restoring Aristotle
to his true place has hardly been effected even yet : in Spi
noza's time it had not been begun.

Spinoza goes on to show that the highest good aimed at
by virtuous or reasonable men is common to all and may be
equally enjoyed by all, and that the virtuous man desires the
same good for his fellows as for himself : 3 and he lays down
in outline the foundations of civil society and law. His posi
tion, expressed in modern language, would be that society is
antecedent to law ; that legal right and wrong can exist only
with reference to a government, and moral right and wrong
only with reference to a community. The form in which he
states it, however, is that ' every one exists by an absolute
natural right,' and pursues by the same right whatever he
supposes to be his own interest. If all men lived according

1 Pr. 35, Schol.

2 Cap. 3, sqq. I am indebted for this parallel to Prof. Land.

3 Pr. 36, 37.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 261

to reason, their desires and pursuits would never clash, and
the ' summum naturae ius ' would suffice them without further
definition. But, since in fact men are subject to passions,
and one man's desires are incompatible with another's, they
can live together and form a society only on the footing of
mutual concession. This concession is guaranteed by the
common authority of the society, operating not by reason
(for the passions can be restrained only by stronger passion)
but by the fear of penalties. The course of living prescribed
by the community under the sanction of a penalty is law :
' and the community thus established by laws and the power
of self-maintenance is called a state, and those who are within
its protection citizens.' Good and ill desert, justice and
injustice, depend on the political order and exist only in the
political or social state, * where it is ordained by common con
sent what is good and bad, and every man is bound to obey
the civil authority.'

' In the state of nature no man is owner of anything by common
consent, nor does anything exist which can be said to be one man's
more than another's ; but all things are all men's, and thus in the
state of nature we cannot conceive any purpose of giving every man
his own,1 nor yet of depriving any one of that which is his : that is,
nothing done in the state of nature can be called either just or unjust.
This becomes possible only in the civil state, where it is ordained by
common consent what belongs to this and to that man.'

Here we have a first sketch of Spinoza's theory of law and
politics, which coincides in the main with that of Hobbes, and
so anticipates in its broad features the analysis adopted and
developed by the later English school of jurisprudence. In
this place however it is meagrely and not quite opportunely
presented, and is not seen to advantage. One is struck by
the capital omission to distinguish in any way between posi
tive civil law, custom, and what we now call positive morality.

1 Voluntas unicuique suum tribuendi : alluding to the familiar definition of
justice in the civil law (iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique
tribuens, I. i. i).

262 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

The obvious fact that moral wrong-doing extends far beyond
disobedience to the civil law, which leaves untouched many
things commonly judged worthy of the strongest moral disap
probation, appears to be simply ignored. In order to make
Spinoza's account complete even in outline on its own ground
and from its own point of view, we need the conception of
positive morality as a kind of informal law which aims at
governing conduct in a particular society, and acts through
the sanctions of collective approbation and disapprobation,
being administered not by any set tribunal or officers, but by
the members of the community at large. But on these points
we need not dwell at present.

Next comes the consideration in detail of what things are
useful and hurtful to man's common estate. In the first place,
everything is useful which tends to preserve life, or, as Spinoza
puts it in the language of his Cartesian physics and phy
siology, ' whatever tends to preserve the proportion of motion
and rest subsisting betwixt the parts of the human body is
good ; and contrariwise that is bad which tends to alter the
same proportion : ' l the specific and individual character of
any body whatever being considered as resulting from the
mutual communication of motion among its particles in a cer
tain definite proportion. The destruction or change of cha
racter consequent on the disturbance of this proportion in a
living body is however not necessarily equivalent to death in
the ordinary sense.

' I am not so bold as to deny,' adds Spinoza in the Scholium, * that
a human body, keeping the circulation of the blood and other pro
perties which are esteemed the marks of life, may nevertheless
receive another nature wholly different from its former one. For no
reason compels me to hold that the body dies not unless it become
a corpse ; nay experience would seem to suggest the contrary. It
sometimes befalls a man to surfer such change as that I would scarce
call him the same, as I have heard tell of a Spanish poet, who having
been seized with great sickness and recovered therefrom, yet was left
1 Pr. 39, referring to Def. in the Excursus after Pr. 13, part 2.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 263

so forgetful of his past life that he believed not the plays he had writ
to be his own, and might indeed have been held for a grown-up child
if he had forgotten his mother-tongue as well. And if this appear
incredible, what shall we say of infants, whom a man of ripe age
thinks to be so unlike himself in kind that he could never be per
suaded he had been such himself, did he not apply to himself the
analogy of other men ? But lest I should afford occasion to super
stitious persons for raising novel questions, I shall leave these matters
alone.'

This is the whole of Spinoza's contribution to the vexed
question of personal identity, which he seems to regard (and
rightly so from the scientific point of view) as at best merely
curious. In an equally general but simpler proposition which
immediately precedes this one l it is laid down that such
things are good as increase the capacity of the human body
to receive impressions from without and to impress its own
action on outwrard things. For the manifold and various
adaptation of the body is likewise an adaptation of the mind
and increases its power of knowledge. Pleasure as such is
good, since it tends to increase of active power, and pain as
such is bad.2 But localized pleasure (titillatio) may be bad
as interfering unduly with the activity of other parts and
of the body as a whole ; and a pain which serves to control
this local excess of pleasure may be good. Love and desire
may, for the same cause, be excessive and unreasonable.
Hatred is never good ; for it aims at the destruction of our
fellow-man ; and the same consequence holds of all the emo
tions derived from it, such as envy, derision, contempt, anger.
Here a very interesting Scholium is added.

' Between derision and laughter I mark a great difference. For
laughter, like jesting, is mere pleasure ; and therefore is in itself
good, so it be not excessive. Surely 'tis but an ill-favoured and sour
superstition that forbids rejoicing. For why is it a better deed to
quench thirst and hunger than to drive out melancholy ? This is

1 Pr. 38.

2 Laetitia directe mala non est, sed bona ; tristitia autem contra directe est
mala. Pr. 41.

264 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

my way of life, and thus have I attuned my mind. No deity, nor
any one but an envious churl, hath delight in my infirmity and incon
venience, nor reckons towards our virtues weeping, sobs, fear, and
other such matters which are tokens of a feeble mind ; but con-
trariwise the more we are moved with pleasure, the more we pass
to greater perfection, that is, the more must we needs partake of the
divine nature. Therefore it is the wise man's part to use the world
and delight himself in it as he best may, not indeed to satiety, for
that is no delight A wise man, I say, will recruit and refresh him
self with temperate and pleasant meat and drink, yea and with
perfumes, the fair prospect of green woods, apparel, music, sports
and exercises, stage-plays and the like, which every man may enjoy
without any harm to his neighbour. For the human body is com
pounded of very many parts different of kind, which ever stand in
need of new and various nourishment, that the whole body alike may
be fit for all actions incident to its kind, and that by consequence
the mind may be equally fit for apprehending many things at once.' l

If at a former passage we were tempted to call Spinoza a
Stoic, we shall perhaps be tempted now to call him an Epi
curean. Here is none of the Stoic disdain for the common
amenities of life, no artificial striving to visit them with indif
ference or discredit, no attempt to make a virtue of dispensing
with them. Let us remember that the speaker is one who did
in his own person largely dispense with them, and whose life
was not only temperate, but quiet and frugal in the extreme.
This is not the apology of a man of the world for his careless
living, but the grave unrepining approval of innocent pleasures
by a student debarred by his own circumstances from sharing
in many of them. Nor does he approve them simply because
they are pleasant, but as tending to a high purpose, the many-
sided culture of body and mind. Yet the pursuits and enjoy
ments he mentions are simple and familiar ones, such as are
more or less within the reach of every one above -absolute
poverty, and such as at this day naturally present themselves
to an observer in most civilized countries. England, unhap
pily, is the one land where Spinoza's lesson falls most strangely

1 Prop. 45, Schol.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 265

on the ears of good and well-meaning men and is most sorely
needed. In truth the need is a crying one, and we are only
beginning to learn that rational recreation is a thing worth
studying. But perhaps we shall hardly give ear to Spinoza
in this matter while we refuse to profit by the living example
of our nearest neighbours and kinsfolk. After all it may be
best that we should go farther back yet and learn of the
Greeks, who first and most perfectly discovered the worth and
dignity of human life. We can say nothing better or greater
of Spinoza's doctrine in this passage than that he unconsciously
Atticizes.

There is something touching in the thought of this man,
weak in body, of slender estate, living by sedentary toil and
giving his leisure to philosophy, thus reconstructing for him
self the Athenian ideal of a free and joyous life, in which the
pursuit of beauty is chastened by wisdom and temperance,
while wisdom itself is informed with the delight of a fine art,
and contemplation goes hand in hand with the manhood and
active fellowship of citizens. If it be said that this ideal fails
to include the strenuous and self-denying aspects of virtue,
the proposition is at least doubtful ; but for the present it
suffices to say that Spinoza at all events prescribes a canon
of conduct as lofty and unselfish as any moral teacher of
ancient or modern times. Not that in Spinoza's view any
virtue is really self-denying : for the denial and restraint of
the unruly passions and of all that we call selfish is the
strengthening and affirmation of man's true self. But let us
hear his next precept.

' He who lives according to reason endeavours to the utmost of
his power to outweigh another man's hate, anger or despite against
him with love or high-mindedness. ... He who chooses to avenge
wrong by requiting it with hatred is assuredly miserable. But he
who strives to cast out hatred by love may fight his fight in joy and
confidence ; he can withstand many foes as easily as one, and is in
nowise beholden to fortune for aid. As for those he doth conquer,

266 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

they yield to him joyfully, and that not because their strength faileth,
but because it is increased.' 1

The ethical value of the specific emotions is assigned on
the principle that only those are good which spring from the
active and rational part of man's nature. Hope and fear, since
they involve pain, are good only so far as they may check the
excess of other passions (Pr. 47). Pity, for the same reason,
is in itself worse than useless, and will be shunned by the
reasonable man (Pr. 50). Spinoza is careful to explain in
what sense he means this, which in fact is the sense in which
the Stoics laid down similar rules.

'A man who rightly knows that everything follows from the
necessity of God's being and happens according to the eternal laws
of nature will in truth find nothing worthy of hate, mockery, or
contempt, nor will he pity any one ; but, so much as human power
admits, he will endeavour to do well, as they say, and be of good
cheer. Moreover it is to be noted that he who is lightly touched
with the passion of pity and moved by the distress or tears of another
often doth somewhat of the which he afterwards repents ; because as
well we do nothing out of passion which we surely know to be good,
as we are easily deceived by feigned lamentations. But 2 in this
place I particularly intend a man who lives according to reason.
For one who is moved neither by reason nor by pity to help others
is justly called inhuman, since he acts as if he had no likeness to
man.'

In like manner humility and repentance, though not
part of the reasonable man's character, are relatively useful,
and necessary for the government of mankind. Since men
must err, it is better they should err on the side of submission
than on that of pride and violence. This admission of a scale
of relative merit as between passions and motives which in
themselves are all alike unworthy of the reasonable man may
remind us of certain features in the Stoic system, though the

1 Prop. 46, and Schol.

2 Perhaps we should read atqid for atque. The Dutch version omits the con
junction altogether.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 267

analogy is not exact. On the other hand the emotions which
can be purely active, as goodwill (favor), self-contentment
(acquiescentia in se ipso\ honour (gloria}, may have a reason
able origin and be positively good. And generally ' every
activity to which we are -determined by an emotion in the
nature of passion may be determined in us by reason without
such emotion ' (Pr. 59). No particular action is in itself either
good or bad, and therefore every particular action may in some
conceivable circumstances be induced by reason. The act of
striking, for instance, is in itself the lifting of the arm, closing
of the fist, and forcible bringing down of the arm ; and, consi
dered as a physical action, it is a manifestation of the power
or excellence proper to the human body (virtus quae ex
carports humani fabrica concipitur). But the act may be
performed for an infinite variety of purposes, lawful or un
lawful, wise or foolish. The attitude and movements of
Hamlet playing in good faith are the same as those of Laertes
with his poisoned rapier. Cicero's hand wrote consummate
prose with the same motion and characters as worthless verse.

' So, if a man that is moved with anger or hate is thereby deter
mined to close his fist or move his arm, this happens (as we showed
in the second part) because one and the same action may be joined
with any sort of images of things ; and thus we may be determined
as well by images of things we conceive confusedly, as by those we
conceive clearly and distinctly, to one and the same action. It
appears therefore that every desire arising from an emotion of the
passionate kind would be of no utility if men could be led by reason.'

In other words, reason and the active emotions related to it
afford an adequate motive for every reasonably desirable act :
but such motives will be effective only so far as the man to
whom they are presented is reasonable.

One reason of desire being irrational, or not regarding the
interest of the agent as a whole, is its proceeding from local
pleasure or pain ; and ' since pleasure is mostly referred to
some one part of the body, we mostly exercise the desire to

268 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

maintain our being without taking any thought of our health
as a whole.' Another reason is the undue preponderance of
the present over the future in our most common desires.1
This however does not occur when the mind is guided by
reason in its judgments ; for then it conceives things ' under
the form of eternity or necessity,' and facts are regarded in
their true relations and independent of their being past,
present or future. Hence, in so far as we act reasonably, we
choose not only the greater of two goods and the lesser of
two evils, but a greater good in the future before a lesser in
the present, and a lesser evil in the present which is to be
outweighed by a greater good in the future.2 In this group
of propositions it is also pointed out that reasonable action is
never produced by fear : ' under reasonable desire we seek the
good directly and avoid evil indirectly. . . . This is illus
trated by the case of a sick and a healthy man. The sick
man eats what he dislikes for fear of death ; but the whole
man enjoys his food and so hath better use of life than if he
feared death and had an immediate desire of avoiding it. So
the judge, when he sentences a criminal to death not from
hate or anger, but merely for love toward the public weal, is
led by reason alone.' (Pr. 63, schol. 2).

This part of the Ethics is now brought to a close by an
enunciation of the qualities of the reasonable, or, as Spinoza
now puts it with the Stoics, the free man. Here his proposi
tions assume the nature of aphorisms ; they cannot be con
sidered strictly capable of proof, and that which stands first,
one of the noblest and most weighty sayings ever uttered,
seems to foreshadow the more daring flights of the succeeding
book. Yet, if we regard it as a precept for use in life, it is on
a scientific view of man's nature as just and reasonable as it is

1 Pr. 60, and Schol.

'*• Pr. 62, 65, 66. In Pr. 66, ' malum praesens minus quod causa est futuri
[futura ed. Bruder by misprint] alicuius mali ' is obviously corrupt. The con
temporary Dutch translator appears to have read maioris boni, which may be ac
cepted as a practically certain correction (NageL Schriften, p. 244).

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 2C9

morally elevating ; and the demonstration offered by Spinoza
is extremely simple.

' A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is
a meditation not of death but of life.

Demonstr. A free man, that is, one who lives only by tie bidding
of reason, is not led by the fear of death, but immediately desires
good ; that is, to act, to live, and maintain his own being on the
footing of seeking his true interest. And therefore he thinks of no
thing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation of life ;
which was to be proved.' (Pr. 67.)

Again,

' If men were born free, they would, so long as they were free,
form no notion of good and evil.' (Pr. 68.)

This depends on a foregoing proposition (64) that the
knowledge of evil is necessarily inadequate ; and it seems to
be a direct reminiscence of Maimonides, who says (More
Nebuchim, c. 2) that Adam before the Fall had a true
'intellectual comprehension' and knew nothing of probable
opinion, to which the categories of good and evil belong. By
the unfallen intellect things were distinguished not as good
and evil, but only as true and false. Spinoza gives in a
Scholium a not dissimilar interpretation of the Mosaic
history, and endeavours incidentally to find authority in it
for various points of his psychology. To what extent he was
serious in this must be left to every reader's conjecture ; but
it is quite possible that he was really disposed, after the
example abundantly set by Maimonides and others, to
regard the legends of Genesis as elaborate philosophical
allegories.

The statement that ' only free men are perfectly grateful
to one another,' which has already been thrown out in
general terms, is now given as a formal proposition (Pr. 71):
there seems to be a play on the meaning of the adjective
which is rather more natural in Latin than in English. On
the other hand (Pr. 70), a free man whose conversation is

270 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

among the ignorant will avoid receiving favours from them ;
for he cannot please them except by requiting them after
their own manner with such things as are good in their
conceit. But the desire of the free man is to seek both for
himself and for other men only that which is pointed out as
good by reason. ' Therefore the free man, that he may
neither come into ill repute with the ignorant, nor follow their
appetites instead of holding to reason only, will endeavour,
so far as he may, to eschew favour from them.' But Spinoza
is careful to add a word of explanation to show that he does
not counsel a cynical and unsociable reserve. ' I say so far
as he may. For though men be ignorant, yet they are men,
and in our necessary occasions can give a man's help, than
which nothing is more excellent. And therefore it often
happens to be of necessity to receive some favour from them,
and by consequence to return thanks to them after their own
fashion. Moreover a certain caution must be observed in the
act of declining favours, lest we seem to despise men, or to
be so avaricious that we fear having to recompense them,
and thus fall into giving ground of offence by our very care
to avoid it. So that in declining favours regard must be had
to expediency and good manners.'

Again ' the free man never acts fraudulently, but always in
. good faith ; ' and this is laid down as an universal proposition
applicable even to extreme cases (Pr. 72). Lastly the reason
able man finds true and perfect freedom not in a solitary
independence but in living in society and under a common
law with his fellow-men (Pr. 73). It is considered unneces
sary to follow out in detail the character of the wise or, as he
is now called, the strong man. That he will hate no man,
have no anger, envy, or contempt for any one, and be free
from pride, easily follows from the general propositions
already given as to the conditions of social and reasonable
life. Spinoza now proceeds to collect the precepts of right
living already stated or implied in various parts of his

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 271

argument into a more compact form. This appendix is as
follows.

' Cap. i. All our endeavours or desires so follow of necessity from
our nature that they may be understood either by that nature alone
as their immediate cause, or only by regarding ourselves as a part of
nature, which cannot be adequately conceived by itself apart from
other particular things.

C. 2. The desires which follow from our nature in such wise that
they may be understood by it alone are those which are ascribed
to the mind in so far as it is conceived as consisting of adequate
ideas ; but other desires are ascribed to the mind only in so far as it
conceives things inadequately, and their strength and increase must
be denned not by the power of man but by the power of things out
side us. And therefore the former are justly called actions, the latter
passions. For the former ever denote our power, the latter our im
potence and maimed knowledge.

C. 3. Our actions (that is, those desires which be determined by
man's power or by reason) are always good ; the rest may be either
good or bad.

C. 4. It is therefore of exceeding use in life to perfect, so far as
we can, the understanding or reason, and herein alone consisteth the
highest happiness or blessedness of man. Blessedness, indeed, is
nothing else than the contentment of mind arising from the intuitive
knowledge of God. And to perfect the understanding is nothing
else than to understand God and the attributes of God, and the actions
that necessarily follow from his nature. Wherefore the final aim of a
man led by reason, that is, the chief desire whereby he seeks to
govern all others, is that which makes for the adequate conception
both of himself and of all things which be subjects of his intelli
gence.

C. 5. There is therefore no reasonable life without intelligence, and
things are good only in so far as they help man to enjoy that spiritual
life which the name of intelligence doth signify. And those things
which hinder man from perfecting his reason and enjoying the
rational life are alone by us called evil.

C. 6. Now because all things whereof man is the sole efficient
cause are necessarily good, no evil can happen to man save by out
ward causes ; to wit, inasmuch as man is a part of nature, whose
laws his nature is bound to obey, and he to accommodate himself to
her in almost infinite ways.

272 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

C. 7. And it cannot be otherwise than that man should be a part
of nature and follow her common order ; but if his conversation be
with such creatures as agree with his own nature, thereby man's
active power will be holpen and fostered. Contrariwise if he be
among those whose nature agrees not with his own, he will scarce be
able to accommodate himself to them without some great change in
himself.

C. 8. Whatsoever is found in nature which we judge to be evil,
or to be capable of hindering our existence and enjoyment of life in
reason, that we may repel from ourselves by whatever way seems the
safer. And whatever is found on the other hand which we judge
good or useful for the maintenance of our being and enjoyment of
life in reason, that we may take and convert to our own use as we
will. And generally every one hath an absolute natural right of
doing what he judgeth to make for his own advantage.

C. 9. Nothing can agree better with the nature of any particular
thing than other individuals of the same kind. Therefore (by cap. 7)
there is nothing more useful to man for the maintenance of his being
and enjoyment of rational life than a man who governs himself by
reason. Again, since among particular things we know of none more
excellent than a man who governs himself by reason, therefore a man
can in no way better show the power of his skill and understanding
than in so training up men that at last they may live as true subjects
under the dominion of reason.

C. 10. So far as men bear to one another envy or any emotion
derived from hate, they are contrary to one another ; and are
therefore to be feared in proportion to the excess of their power over
that of other creatures.

C. T i. Yet minds are conquered not by force of arms, but by love
and highmindedness.

C. 12. It is of exceeding use to men to enter upon acquaintance
and so bind themselves together that they may the better make
themselves all one power, and generally to do such things as are
fitted to establish friendship.

C. 13. But for this they need skill and vigilance. For men
be of many minds (seeing few of them live as reason prescribes), and
yet are mostly envious and more prone to revenge than to pity. So
that to endure every man's humour and restrain oneself from copy
ing their passions is a matter of no small resolution. Yet those who
rather chide men and rebuke their faults than teach them virtue, and
can break their spirits, but not strengthen them, are grievous both

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 273

to themselves and others. Thus many have been driven by their
overmuch impatience or misguided zeal for religion to live with
brutes rather than men ; as boys and lads who cannot quietly bear to
be scolded by their parents will go for soldiers, and choose the hard
ships of war and a tyrannical discipline rather than convenience at
home and a father's counsel withal, and suffer any burden to be put
upon them if only they may spite their parents.

C. 14. Therefore although men for the most part carry every
thing after their own fancies, yet from their common fellowship there
ensues far more convenience than harm. So it is the better part to
bear wrong from them with an even mind, and be diligent in whatever
is fitted to bring about concord and friendship.

C. 15. That which begetteth concord is that which belongs to
justice, equity, and good report. For, besides what is unjust and
iniquitous, men are also displeased with what is in ill repute, or when
a man doth reject the usage received in their commonwealth. And
for winning their love those things be chiefly necessary which have
regard to religion and piety.

[Reference is made to previous propositions as to these terms.
Religion is the sum of desires and actions proceeding from the idea or
knowledge of God, i.e. from the conception of the order of nature
as one and uniform. Piety is the desire of well-doing produced by
living according to reason. Pr. 37, Schol. i.]

C. 1 6. Concord is also commonly produced by fear ; but this is
treacherous. Also fear ariseth from a weakness of the mind and
therefore belongs not to the exercise of reason ; and the same holds
of compassion, though it hath on the face of it a certain show of
piety.

C. 17. Men are likewise overcome by liberality, chiefly those
who have not wherewithal to buy the necessaries of life. But help
ing every one in need is far beyond the means and convenience of
any private person. For a private man's wealth is no match for such
a demand. Also a single man's opportunities are too narrow for him
to contract friendship with all. Wherefore providing for the poor is a
duty that falls on the whole community and has regard only to the
common interest.

C. 1 8. In receiving favours and the return of gratitude there is a
material distinction, as to which see the Scholia to Pr. 70 and 71.

[That is, the reasonable man endeavours to decline favours from
the ignorant which would place him under embarrassing obligations •

274 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

but between free men there is a free and unrestrained affection, apart
from and above any question of returning or recompensing favours.]
C. 19. Meretricious love, that is, the lust of generation which
ariseth from outward beauty, and in general every kind of love that
hath any cause beside freedom of mind, doth easily pass into hate,
unless (which is worse) it be a kind of madness ; and then more
discord than concord grows of it. See the Coroll. to Pr. 31, Part 3.
C. 20. As concerning marriage, 'tis certain that it agrees with
reason if the desire of bodily union is bred not merely of outward
sense but of the desire to beget children and bring them up in
wisdom ; and also if the love of both parties, namely the man and
the woman, has not outward sense alone for its cause, but freedom
of mind in the chief place.

C. 21. Concord is also produced by flattery ; but this is at the cost
of vile slavishness or falsehood. None are more easily taken with
flattery than the proud ones, who fain would be first, and are not.

C. 22. Dejection hath a false show of piety and religion. And
though dejection be contrary to pride, yet is the downcast man very
near being proud. See Schol. to Pr. 57.

C. 23. Likewise concord is advanced by shame, but only in
things which cannot be hid. Also because shame is in itself a kind
of pain it belongs not to the exercise of reason.

C. 24. The other emotions of pain towards men are plainly
against justice, equity, good report, piety and religion. And though
indignation hath on the face of it a show of equity, yet life is but law
less where any man may pass judgment on another's deeds and vindi
cate his own or another's right.

C. 25. Civility (modestia), that is, a desire of pleasing men which
is determined by reason, is referred (as we said in the Schol. to Pr.
37) to piety. But if it arise from passion l it is ambition, a desire
whereby men do mostly stir up strife and tumults under the pretence
of piety. A man who desires to help others by counsel or deed, so
as thiey may together enjoy the chief good, will be very forward to
win their love to him, but not to draw them into admiration of him,
that a doctrine may be called after his name, nor in any manner to
give cause of offence. Also in common talk he will eschew telling
of men's faults, and will speak but sparingly of human weakness.
But he will speak at large of man's virtue and power, and the means
of perfecting the same, that thus men may endeavour, not from fear

1 AJfectu : but Spinoza must mean affectu qui passio csf.

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 275

or disgust, but wholly in joyfulness, to live, so far as in them lies,
after the commandment of reason.

C. 26. Except men we know of no particular thing in nature, in
whose mind we may take pleasure and which we may join to our
selves by friendship or any manner of society ; and therefore what
ever there is beside men in the world the reason of our convenience
doth not require us to preserve, but persuades us according to the
divers uses thereof to preserve, destroy, or adapt it to our own use
as we will.

C. 27. The utility we derive from things outside us is (besides
the experience and knowledge we acquire from observing them and
changing them from one form into another) in the first place the con
servation of our body. And in this regard those things are chiefly
useful which can so feed and nourish the body as to make all its
parts fit for their proper offices. For the better fitted the body is to
be impressed and to impress outward bodies in divers ways the more fit
is the mind for thinking. (See Propp. 38 and 39.) But of this kind
there seem to be very few things in nature. Wherefore for nourish
ing the body as it needs we must use many foods of different kinds :
the human body being indeed made up of very many parts of
different kinds, which be in need of constant and manifold nourish
ment, that the body may be equally fit for performing all things which
are within its natural power, and consequently that the mind may
also be equally fit for perceiving many different things.

C. 28. Now for achieving this the strength of every man would
scarce avail unless men lent one another their help. But money has
given us a token for everything. Whence it happens, that the
imagination thereof doth mainly busy the minds of the common
sort ; for they can scarce imagine any kind of pleasure without
having withal the idea of money as its cause.

C. 29. This is the fault only of them who seek money not from
poverty nor for their needs, but because they have learnt arts of gain
and make a mighty show with them. Tis true they tend their bodies
by habit ; but scantily, since they esteem themselves to be losing so
much of their goods as they spend on maintaining their own bodies.
But they who know the right use of money and fix the measure of
wealth only according to need can live contented with a little.

C. 30. Since then those things are good which assist the mem
bers of the body to perform their office, and pleasure consists in
this, that the power of man, in so far as he is composed of body and
mind, is advanced or increased ; therefore all things be good which

T 2

276 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

bring us pleasure. Yet since things operate not for any such purpose
as to give us pleasure, nor is their power of action limited according
to our convenience, and also because pleasure is mostly related to
some one part of the body above the rest ; therefore most emotions
of pleasure are subject to excess, unless reason be on guard, and
consequently so are the desires engendered of them. Besides all
which emotion leads us to count that first which is agreeable in the
present, and we cannot consider things future with a proportionate
liveliness. See the Scholia to Pr. 44 and Pr. 60.

C. 31. But superstition seemeth contrariwise to hold that for
good which brings pain, and that for evil which brings pleasure.
But, as we have said, (Schol. to Pr. 45) only an envious man can
take any delight in my weakness and inconvenience. For the
greater is our pleasure the more do we pass to greater perfection, and
therefore the more do we partake of the divine nature ; nor can
pleasure ever be bad, when it is governed by a just regard for our
interest as a whole. But he who is led by fear and doth good only
to avoid toil is not led by reason.

C. 32. Now man's power is very much confined, and is infinitely
surpassed by the power of external causes ; and therefore we have
not any absolute power of converting to our own use things outside
us. Yet we shall bear with an even mind that which happens to us
against the conditions of our own advantage if we are aware that we
have done our part of the business, and that the power we possess
could not have gone so far as to avoid those evils ; and that we are
a part of the whole order of nature and bound thereby. Which if we
clearly and distinctly understand, that part of us which is described
as intelligence^ that is, our better part, will therein be wholly contented
and will endeavour to persist in that content. For so far as we
understand, we can desire nothing but what is necessary, nor can we
rest content in aught but the truth ; and therefore so far as we under
stand these things rightly, the endeavour of our better part agrees
with the universal order of nature.'

This summary does not appear to call for any particular
explanation. The equivalence of action, intelligence, and
virtue, which stands out in the leading enunciations, has
already been remarked on : the description of intelligence as
' our better part ' at the conclusion is of some importance as
leading up to the doctrine of the following Part. Attention

THE BURDEN OF MAN. 277

may be called to the moral elevation of the precept given in
cap. 25. It is a lofty refinement of the fundamental duty of
good will to men which is not to be found, so far as I know,
in any other moralist. The tone is very like that of Marcus
Aurelius, but I have not met with an exact parallel to the
matter either in M. Aurelius or elsewhere.

SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN.

Nee pietas ullast velatum saepe videri
vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras
nee procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas
ante deum delubra nee aras sanguine multo
spargere quadrupedum nee votis nectere vota,
sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri.

LUCRETIUS : v. 1198.

Je croi, dist Pantagruel, que toutes ames intellectives sont exemptes des
ciseaulx d'Atropos. — RABELAIS : Pantagriiel, book iv. ch. xxvii.

La raison triomphe de la mort, et travailler pour elle, c'est travailler pour
1'eternite. — E. RENAN : Discours de reception, 3 avril, 1879.

WITH the fourth Part of the ' Ethics ' it might appear at first
sight that Spinoza's task was ended. He has laid bare the
constituents of human motives and passions ; he has explained
the working of these passions in the various circumstances of
life ; he has contrasted the slave of passion with the reason
able or free man, and has declared the precepts of righteous
ness and goodwill. But he esteems his work only half done,
and goes on to that which remains as to something he has
been longing to take in hand.

' At length/ he says in the Preface to Part V., ' I pass on to the
other division of my Ethics, concerning the method or path which
leads us to freedom. And in this I shall treat of the power of reason,
and show what is its native strength against the emotions, and thence
what is the freedom or blessedness of the mind. Whence we shall
see in how much better case is the wise man than the ignorant.
But by what means and method the understanding is to be perfected,
and by what skill the body is to be tended that it may truly do its

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 279

office, pertains not to this inquiry ; for the latter of these is the con
cern of medicine, the former of logic.'

The fact is that Spinoza's aim has throughout been prac
tical. He has undertaken the scientific analysis of the pas
sions, not without the pure curiosity of the man of science, but
mainly to the end of showing how they may be mastered, and
the conditions of man's happiness assured. In this he is
at one with the Greeks, and particularly, as in many points
before, with the Stoics. But Spinoza explicitly denies the
Stoic assumption that the will has an absolute power over the
emotions : a denial which, on comparison of his express con
tradictions of Descartes, might be taken to imply an admis
sion that in other ways the Stoic doctrine appeared to him
profitable and worthy of respect. In the same passage he
goes on to controvert the Cartesian theory of a connexion
between the mind and the body through the pineal gland, by
which Descartes endeavoured to show ' that there is no soul
so feeble but that, being rightly trained, it may acquire an
absolute dominion over its passions.' Spinoza points out
that the hypothesis of the pineal gland being the seat of con
sciousness, transmitting impressions to the mind from without,
and receiving orders from the mind which are sent on to the
nerves of motion by means of the animal spirits, is contrary
to Descartes' own principles of scientific work ; introducing
as it does assumptions more baseless and occult than any of
the -scholastic occult qualities which Descartes rejected. He
also remarks that Descartes did not and could not assign any
mechanical measure of the alleged power of the mind to ini
tiate or control the motions of this gland : ' in truth, will and
motion being incommensurable, there is no comparison betwixt
the power or force of the mind and the body : and therefore
the force of the latter can in no wise be determined by that of
the former.' The physiological difficulties of the hypothesis
are lightly touched on, but so as to show that Spinoza did not
overlook them. In its" actual form this preliminary discussion

28o SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

is now chiefly interesting as a monument of the extraordinary
hold the Cartesian philosophy must have acquired on that
generation to make Spinoza thus go out of his way to re
fute the most fantastic and untenable point of it. But the
substance of Spinoza's argument remains applicable to the
various quasi-materialist attempts that from time to time have
been made, in the supposed interest of spiritual truth, to esta
blish or make plausible some kind of physical communica
tion between the mind and the brain.

When we examine in detail what Spinoza has to say ' of
the power of the understanding, or of Man's freedom,' 1 we
find that it consists of two independent parts. The first
(Part V. of * Ethics ' to Prop. 20) is a consistent following out
of the psychological method we have already become familiar
with. The condition of mastering the emotions is shown to
be a clear and distinct understanding of their nature and
causes ; and the love of God — which is nothing else than the
rational contemplation of the order of the world, and of
human nature as part thereof — is described as the greatest
happiness of man in this life, and the surest way of establish
ing the rule of the understanding over the passions. Here
again one might suppose, and with more reason than before,
that nothing more remained to be set forth. But it is not so :
Spinoza proceeds to lay before us a theory of intellectual im
mortality, or rather eternity, the perfection whereof consists in
an intellectual love of God which is likewise eternal, and ' is
part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself.' This
exposition, which takes up the fifth Part of the * Ethics ' from
Prop. 21 onwards, presents great difficulties. It is by no
means obvious, in the first place, what is Spinoza's real mean
ing ; nor can we feel sure that any explanation is the right one
until we have some probable account of the manner in which
Spinoza reconciled the doctrine, as we may propose to read

1 Title of Part V.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 281

it, with the rest of his own philosophy. And this latter pro
blem is a yet harder one.

The question has been evaded, as it seems to me, by most
of those who have written on Spinoza. Critics who regard
him as a transcendental dogmatist naturally feel no particular
difficulty at this point : why should not Spinoza dogmatize
about the eternity of the mind as well as about Substance and
Attributes ? So they are content to give some abridgment or
paraphrase of Spinoza's argument which in truth explains
nothing. Others, led by their own prepossessions to disregard
all the rules of historical and critical probability, have sought,
in the face of Spinoza's express and repeated warnings, to make
out that his theory is a doctrine of personal immortality in the
ordinary sense, or some sense practically equivalent to it, only
stated in an unusual way and supported by artificial reason
ing. Some few, taking a view of the general meaning of
Spinoza's philosophy similar to that which has been main
tained in the foregoing chapters, have manfully striven to re
duce this apparently eccentric part into scientific conformity
to the main body. But they are forced to say either that
Spinoza did not clearly know his own meaning, or that he did
not succeed in saying what he meant, or that he deliberately
said things he did not mean : none of which suppositions can
be entertained by any serious and impartial reader of the
'Ethics' except as a desperate remedy. For my part, I
would rather confess myself baffled than help myself out by
any one of them, especially the last : and in fact I long
thought the obscurity of the last portion of the ' Ethics ' all
but hopeless.

The explanation I shall now put forward with the hope
of throwing some light upon the historical affinities of this
speculation, and its logical connexion with Spinoza's psy
chology, is one that has occurred to me almost at the last
moment, and after repeated consideration.

It may be observed here, as a matter independent of any

282 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

particular interpretation of Spinoza's thought, that there is
some reason to believe that he was himself conscious of not
standing on the firmest ground in this place. The proposi
tions concerning the eternity of the mind seem to be carefully
isolated from the rest : the love of God arising from clear and
distinct self-knowledge (Prop. 15) is kept apart from the in
tellectual love which is the privilege of the mind in its eternal
quality (Prop. 33), though on almost any possible reading of
Spinoza's theory the two must coincide ; and at the end
Spinoza guards himself by showing that the validity of ethical
motives and precepts is independent of the exalted doctrine
he has just been setting forth (Prop. 41). In a writer so care
ful and subtle indications of this kind are not to be neglected.
I believe that Spinoza's argument was to himself satisfactory ;
but it hangs, as I read it, on a very special point in his theory
of knowledge, and it may well be that he saw the danger of
its not being satisfactory to other people. Moreover I am
inclined to think that Spinoza wished emphatically to dis
claim any intention of relying on a supernatural or super
sensible world for the foundations of ordinary virtue and
morality. He puts his eternity of the mind as a kind of sup
plemental speculation ; if we accept it, so much the better ; if
not, the rest of his work will not be impaired. It might per
haps be suggested that this series of propositions was in fact
an afterthought. But conjectures of this kind are too uncer
tain to be worth pursuing.

Let us now turn to a connected survey of the book ;
taking first in order, as it comes, the practical and fairly
obvious part. The opening propositions, in which the con
ditions of the mind's power of self-control are laid down, run
as follows :

i. As particular thoughts and ideas of things are arranged
and connected in the mind, exactly so are bodily modifica
tions or images of things arranged and connected in the
body.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 283

(This is an immediate inference from the complete paral
lelism of mind and body.)

2. If we separate a disturbance or emotion of the mind
from the thought of its outward cause, and associate it with
other thoughts, then love or hatred towards that outward
cause, as likewise the agitations arising from those emotions,
will be destroyed.

(For love and hate depend on the idea of the external
cause being present.)

3. That emotion which is a passion ceases to be passion
as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof.

(For passion as such is a confused idea.)

4. There is no modification of the body whereof we cannot
form some clear and distinct conception.

(For all bodies and affections of bodies have some proper
ties in common, and our conceptions of these are adequate.)

Hence it appears that it is more or less in every one's
power to attain a clear understanding of his own nature, and
to that extent to be superior to passion. So that the first
precept of freedom may be thus expressed : Understand the
passions that you may be master of them. Nay, the very
emotions and desires that otherwise would be pernicious are
converted to beneficial uses by the government of the under
standing. For example, ' we have found man's nature to be
such that he desires others to live after his own plan. And
in a man not governed by reason this desire is the passion
called ambition, which is little removed from pride ; whereas
in the man who lives according to reason it is a virtue or
'activity, and is called piety.' Such is the nature of the
mind's power over the emotions. Of course it might equally
be expressed in terms of the attribute of Extension, as a
power of the body over the particular modifications of the
organism which correspond to the emotions in consciousness.
But, as Spinoza is here considering the emotions in their
mental aspect as states of feeling, he naturally follows both

284 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

convenience and common use in regarding the facts on the
psychical rather than the physical side. This does not the least
imply, as a hasty reader might think, that he loses sight of
the physical side. If there is one canon of interpretation
more important than another for the right understanding of
Spinoza, it is that the physiological correlations of mental
action are never overlooked by him for a moment, whatever
his language may be.

Next, how may this power of the mind be strengthened ?
By conceiving all things as necessary ; for the knowledge of
a thing as determined by definite causes tends to prevent us
from fixing any emotion upon it (Pr. 5, 6).

' The more this knowledge of things as necessary is applied to
particular things where of we have a distinct and lively imagination,
the greater is this power of the mind over the emotions, as experience
also doth bear witness. For we perceive sorrow for any possession
that is lost to be abated whenever the man who hath lost it adviseth
with himself that this possession could in no manner have been saved
So likewise we see that no man pities a child because it cannot speak,
walk, or reason, or because for so many years its life is in a manner
unconscious. But if the more part of us were born grown up, and
one here and there as a child, then who but would pity children ?
since then we should regard the state of infancy not as a thing natural
and necessary, but as a defect or fault in nature. And after this sort
we might mark several other instances.' (Pr. 6, Schol.)

It is further pointed out that an emotion arising from
rational contemplation, since it depends on constant and ever
present facts in the order of nature, will be stronger, other
things being equal, than emotions directed towards a par
ticular absent object ; and that emotion is stronger in propor
tion to the number of distinct exciting causes acting together
to produce it. Then comes a proposition in the nature of
practical application : —

' So long as we are not disturbed by emotions contrary l to our

1 Contrarii is omitted in the text of the Opp. Posth. It is tacitly supplied by
the Dutch translator, and replaced in the text of Gfrorer's and Binder's edd.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 285

nature, we have the power of ordering and connecting the affections
of the body in pursuance of the intellectual order.' (Prop. 10.)

Spinoza comments on this in a Scholium, which seems to
mark a period in the discussion. It is of a very practical
kind, and may strike the reader as not being original : in
which case I would ask him to reflect that we have much
reason to be thankful that in moral precepts intended for real
use no great originality is either needful or practicable. The
scientific discussion and explanation of morality is the task
of philosophers. But morality itself is made by the commu
nity of right-minded men, whether they happen to be philo
sophers or not : and when we come to speak of the actual
contents of morality and the conduct of life, the philosopher
has little or no advantage over any other right-minded man
beyond the habit of expressing himself in accurate language.
No system of ethics can do more than organize the common
moral sense of good men. Let us hear Spinoza, therefore, as
one speaking to us in the name of us all. That which is
spoken with the common voice and in the common name of
man's conscience may well be common ; if it is not, we
should strive to make it so. But it can never be common
place.

' By this power of duly ordering and linking together the affections
of our body we may bring it to pass that we be not easily wrought on
by evil passions. For greater force is needed to control emotions
ordered and linked according to the intellectual order than those
which are uncertain and loose. Wherefore the best we can compass,
so long as we have not a perfect knowledge of our emotions, is to lay
put a method and settled rules of life, to commit these to memory,
and constantly l to apply them to such particular cases as do com
monly meet us in life, that so our imagination may be penetrated
therewith, and we may ever have them at hand. We laid down, for
example, among the precepts of life, that hatred should be conquered
by love or high-mindedness, not repaid in kind. Now that this

1 Continue : Spinoza was probably not ignorant of the classical usage of the
word, but it would not suit this context.

286 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

command of reason may always be ready for us at need, we should
often think upon and consider the wrongs commonly done by men,
and in what manner they are warded off by a noble mind. For thus
we shall knit the image of a wrong done us to the imagination of
this precept, and the precept will always be at hand when a wrong is

offered us But we shall note that in ordering our thoughts

and imaginations we are ever to attend to that which is good in a
particular thing, that we may always be determined to action by an
emotion of pleasure. For example, if one sees that he exceedeth in
the pursuit of honour, let him think of the right use thereof, and for
what purpose it is to be pursued, and by what means to be acquired ;
not of the misuse and vanity of it, the inconstancy of mankind and
the like, of which no man thinks except for infirmity of spirit. For
with such thoughts do ambitious men most plague themselves, when
they despair of attaining the station they are bent upon; and so
venting their anger they would fain be thought philosophers. 'Tis
certain that they are most greedy of honour who are loudest concern
ing the misuse of it and the vanity of the world. Nor is this peculiar
to the case of ambition, but it is common to all who meet with ill
fortune and lack strength of mind. ... So he who endeavours to
govern his emotions and desires purely by the love of freedom will
strive, as best he may, to know the virtues and their causes, and to
fill his mind with the joy which arises from the true knowledge of
them j but in no wise to study men's faults, nor to flatter them and
make merry with a false show of liberty. And whoever will dili
gently observe and use these precepts (for they are not difficult),
assuredly in a short space of time he will be able for the most part to
guide his actions after the rule of reason.'

We are next introduced to the exercise of contemplative
reason described as the love of God, which consists in the
distinct understanding of one's own nature. There is no form
or mode of knowledge which cannot be made to some extent
clear and distinct ; in other words, ' referred to the idea of
God,' since without God nothing exists or can be conceived.
Clear and distinct understanding of one's own nature involves
pleasure, and this is accompanied by the idea of God ; and
therefore the resulting emotion is love of God, and, being
associated with every act of understanding, must hold the
chief place in the mind that entertains it. God, on the other

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 287

hand, is not subject to passion, not capable of pleasure or
pain, and cannot properly be said to love or hate any one.
Therefore, since we cannot desire that God should contradict
his own nature and perfections, ' he who loves God cannot
endeavour that God should love him in return.' And this
love of God is the chief good which men can seek under the
guidance of reason ; it may be common to all men, and we
can wish it for others as much as for ourselves. Thus it is
not liable to be marred, like the common affections of men,
by envy or jealousy.1

Here again there is a pause and a summing up.

' I have now collected,' we read, ' all the remedies against the
emotions, that is, everything that the mind considered in itself is
capable of doing against them. Whence it appears that the power of
the mind over the emotions consists, — i. In actual knowledge of
the emotions (see Schol. to Pr. 4 of this Part). 2. In the separation
of the emotions from the thought of the external cause of which we
have a confused imagination. 3. In respect of time, wherein those
affections which have regard to things we understand overmatch
those that have regard to things we conceive confusedly or brokenly
(Prop. 7). 4. In the number of causes by which those affections are
fostered that have regard to the universal properties of things or to
God. (Prop. 9 and n.) 5. Finally in that order in which the mind
can arrange and link together its own emotions/

Spinoza goes on to say that the mind's power consists
in knowledge, considered not as freedom from error but as
its natural and proper activity. Not absence of inadequate
ideas, but preponderance of adequate ones, is the condition of
mental health. Clear and distinct knowledge, more especially
the third or intuitive kind, gives us the means of controlling
the passions to such an extent that they have but an insigni
ficant part in the mind : —

' Likewise it engenders love towards an immutable and eternal
being, truly within our reach ; which therefore can be sullied by none
of the defects common to other kinds of love, but may constantly

1 Propp. 1 1 -20.

288 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE A ND PHILOSOPHY.

increase, and may possess the best part of the mind and thoroughly
penetrate it. And herewith I have finished what concerns this
present life. . . . And so it is time for me to pass on to other
matters which belong to the duration of the mind without regard
to the body.'

We are now on the threshold of the singular and difficult
part of Spinoza's exposition. I shall begin by stating as
clearly as I can what I conceive his meaning to have been.
Next I shall point out what I believe to be the historical
ancestry of his doctrine. Then I shall give the leading
points of the argument in Spinoza's own words, or as nearly
so as may be, and at the same time exhibit in detail, for any
reader who cares to follow me so far, the manner in which I
justify my interpretation.

Whatever is known as part of the necessary order of
nature, in other words exactly or scientifically, is said by
Spinoza to be known ' under the form of eternity.' And this
is eminently true of the immediate knowledge which he calls
the third kind. Now in every act of knowledge the mind is
(in Spinoza's technical sense) the idea of a certain state of its
own body ; and if we regard this as a knowledge of its own
body (which I shall show that Spinoza does), the mind in
contemplating things as necessary knows its own body ' under
the form of eternity.' But the knowing mind has a conscious
ness or knowledge of itself which exactly corresponds to its
knowledge of the body ; in Spinoza's language, it is the idea
of itself as well as of the body. Therefore in all exact know
ledge the mind knows itself ' under the form of eternity : '
that is to say, in every such act it is eternal, and knows itself
as eternal. This eternity is not a persistence in time after the
dissolution of the body, for it is not commensurable with time
at all. And there is associated with it a state or quality of
perfection called the intellectual love of God. This is not an
emotion, since the emotion of pleasure . involves transition
to greater perfection, and therefore a finite time ; but it is

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 289

related to the emotion of love as the eternity of the mind is
related to its existence in time in a particular act of know
ledge. The intellectual love of man for God is part of the
infinite intellectual love wherewith God loves himself; and
the mind, together with whatsoever it knows ' under the form
of eternity,' is a link in an infinite chain of eternal beings,
which all together make up the infinite mind of God. Reser
ving the discussion of difficulties and the critical analysis of
Spinoza's argument, let us endeavour to seize the points
which stand out most distinctly in this daring flight of specu
lation. The eternity of the human mind is a function of pure
intellect, and depends on the mind's power and habit of exact
knowledge. Its perfection goes along with the attainment of
the most perfect kind of knowledge, and its degree is different
in different individuals. It has no relation to time, and there
fore is not a future life or continuance of personal conscious
ness in the ordinary sense. At the same time it is in some
sense individual ; the active and understanding mind is an
' eternal mode of thought ' which is part of the infinite intel
lect, but is not lost in it.

It seems to me that we cannot but trace in this a
direct connexion with the Aristotelian doctrine of immortality
taken up and developed by the Averroists in the middle ages.
M. Kenan's warning is before my eyes : l but it is M. Renan
himself who supplies us with the links that complete, as I
submit, a sufficient chain of evidence.

In various passages of Aristotle a doctrine of intellectual
immortality is indicated rather than worked out. The passive
or receptive elements of the mind are perishable ; only the
active intellect (vovs nroirjTLKos), and the individual mind so
far as it partakes thereof, are eternal and immortal. Whether

1 ' Rechercher si Averroes pent revendiquer quelque chose dans le systeme du
penseur d' Amsterdam, ce serait depasser la limite ou doit s'arreter, dans les
questions de filiation de systemes, une juste curiosite : ce serait vouloir retrouver
la trace du ruisseau quand il s'est perdu dans la prairie. ' — Averroes et VAverroisme,
2d ed. p. 199.

290 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

this active intellect is only the sum of similar elements in
individual minds, that by virtue of which the mind is rational
in each case, or is to be regarded as having a permanent
existence beside and beyond the minds of individual men, is
a point not altogether free from doubt in Aristotle himself.
The commentators resolved and developed the question in
various ways. Ibn-Roshd (Averroes) appears to have consi
dered the active intellect as being independent of this and
that man's individuality, and of one substance in all men,
but existing only in individual men : a unity realized and re
flected in the multiplicity of finite minds. In any case, the
personal immortality of the individual is excluded by the
Averroistic doctrine. The active intellect is immortal, either
in itself or as embodied in the human race which is mortal
only as regards individuals : this and that soul can be im
mortal only so far as they have part in the active intellect ;
not as individual, but as rational and belonging to universal
reason.1

When the Mussulman fanaticism which took alarm even
in Averroes' lifetime had effectually suppressed the cultivation
of philosophy within the bounds of Islam, the light was kept
alive by a series of Jewish scholars of whom Moses ben Mai-
mon, the contemporary of Averroes, was first in time and in
renown. The various problems of the Peripatetic system, and
this particular one among them, were taken up and eagerly
discussed. It was not fully entered upon by Maimonides,
but he inclined to go with Ibn-Roshd in holding that im
mortality was not individual. Levi ben Gerson dealt with it
at length, and after elaborately criticizing the opinions of
Ibn-Roshd and others, concluded in favour of an immortality
which was intellectual but also individual. Rejecting the
notion of union with the universal reason, and retaining the
Aristotelian theory that contemplative knowledge is the only
proper function of an eternal mind, he held that the indi-

1 Rcnan, op. cit. pp. 122-158.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 291

vidual mind is immortal in respect of the knowledge possessed
by it at the time of its emancipation from the body. It has
a fuller and freer possession of this knowledge, but not having
the organism and senses by which alone new experience can
be acquired, it cannot in any way extend it.1

We are fairly entitled to assume that Spinoza was not un
acquainted with the writings of Gersonides ; through them he
would have become acquainted with the Peripatetic doctrine
of intellectual immortality as understood by the commen
tators, and with the Averroist modification of it, as well as
with Gersonides' own speculations. And if this knowledge
is admitted, no supposition is more natural than that Spinoza's
own doctrine was suggested to him from this quarter. The
leading ideas are the same, only worked into formal agree
ment, as we shall presently see, with Spinoza's metaphysics
and psychology. His insistance on the eternity of the mind
being wholly independent of time, and incommensurable with
existence determined in time, appears to be peculiar to him
self ; and in the transfiguration of contemplative knowledge as
the ' intellectual love of God ' there is perhaps a reminiscence
of the Neo-Platonic influence which was still predominant
when he wrote the * Treatise of God and Man.' In that work,
it may be not amiss to observe here, we find little or nothing
to throw light on the part of his mature system now under
consideration. The theory of immortality is but vaguely
sketched out, and, so far as we can assign it to any generic type,
is decidedly Neo-Platonic rather than Aristotelian ; the soul's
capacity for immortality being represented as depending on
its detachment from the body and union with God. But it is
worth noting that in the ' Cogitata Metaphysica ' some space
is given to denouncing the error of those who ' consider eter
nity as a form of duration.' And on the point of eternity

1 Joel, Levi ben Gerson (Gersonides), als Religions-philosoph (in Bciircige
zur Gesch. d. Philosophic) : ' Der von Seele und Leib befreite Geist denkt alle
seine Erkenntnisse auf einmal und als Einhcit. Nur ncuc Erkenntnisse zu
erwerben ist er ausser Stands,' p. 45.

u 2

292 SPINOZA : 'HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

having to do with essentia not existentia, it is said : ' Nobody
will ever say that the being of a circle or a triangle, so far as
it is an eternal truth, hath endured longer at this day than it
had in Adam's.' — ' Cogitata Metaphysica,' Part 2, c. i.

I proceed to the fuller statement of Spinoza's argument.
The leading propositions are as follows.

Prop. 21. The mind cannot imagine any tiling or remember
tilings past except while the body endures.

It will be sufficient to observe, without reproducing
Spinoza's proof and references, that in the Second Part
memory has been treated as dependent on association, which
involves a material mechanism in the brain ; and in like man
ner imagination cannot be exercised without a material organ
of thought and storehouse of impressions.

Prop. 22. There nevertheless necessarily exists in God an
idea which expresses the being of the individual human body
under the form of eternity.

Again let us pass over the formal demonstration, and look
back to Prop. 44 of Part 2. There we find that ' it is of the
nature of reason to perceive things under a certain form of
eternity,' which is the same thing as perceiving them as part
of the necessary order of nature. The human body, like
everything else, is part of the necessary order of nature, and
can therefore be thought of ' under the form of eternity,' as
determined by natural laws whose operation is always and
everywhere the same. The essentia of a result of given con
ditions, or what it shall be, has nothing to do with the tract
of time or portion of space in which the conditions are found :
for Spinoza, like most if not all writers down to our own time,
assumes that the laws of nature can be exactly known, and are
known to be absolutely and universally valid. The existentia
of a particular result— when and where it shall be, if at all—
the fact that it does occur at a given time and place — this
cannot be expressed in terms of the eternal laws of nature
alone, and therefore cannot be determined in thought by pure

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 293

intellect, but only with the help of the imagination. Thus
the ' idea which expresses the essence of this and that human
body under the form of eternity ' would seem to be nothing
else than the knowledge of the human body as a neces
sary part of the order of nature. Further, it seems a fair ex
tension of Spinoza's language to say that everything known
'under the form of eternity' is to that extent eternal. We
shall presently see that he all but says it in so many words.
What Spinoza has really arrived at, then, is that in a certain
sense the human body may be called eternal. We must care
fully observe that this eternity has nothing to do with the
persistence in time of the ultimate elements of the organism
after the organism is dissolved. Let us now see what follows.

'Prop. 23. The human mind cannot be wholly destroyed with the
body, but somewhat of it remains which is eternal.

Demonstr. There is necessarily in God, by the foregoing proposi
tion, a concept or idea which doth express the being of the human
body. This accordingly must needs be something which pertains to
the being of the human mind (by Prop. 13, Part 2).1 But we do
not assign to the human mind any duration that can be described by
time, except so far as it doth express the actual existence of the body,
which is explained by duration and may be described by time ; that
is (by Coroll. Prop. 8, Part 2)2 we assign not. existence to it except
while the body endures. But seeing there is nevertheless somewhat
which by a certain eternal necessity is conceived through the being
of God, this somewhat which belongs to the being of the mind will
necessarily be eternal.

Schol. This idea which doth express the being of the body under
the form of eternity is, as we said, a determined mode of thought

1 ' The object of the idea which makes up the human mind is a body or certain
actually existing mode of extension, and nothing else.'

- ' So long as particular things do not exist, save so far as they are contained
in the attributes of God [i.e., so long as they exist potentially but not actually],
the objective being or ideas of them do not exist, save in so far as the infinite idea
of God exists.' This is a case of the universal parallelism. Whatever can be said
to exist potentially in the order of extension must also be said to exist potentially
in the order of thought. The universe as a whole, which on the side of thought
is 'infinita Dei idea,' involves the whole history of things and every possible con
sequence of the laws of nature.

294 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

which belongs to the being of the mind and is necessarily eternal.
Yet it cannot come to pass that we remember anything of an exist
ence before the body, since neither can there occur any traces thereof
in the body, nor can eternity be described by time, nor have unto
time any proportion. But none the less we do feel and are aware
that we are eternal. For the mind feels not less those things which
it conceives by the understanding than those which it doth hold in
memory. The eyes of the mind, wherewith she sees and observes
things, are no other than demonstrations. So that although we
remember not that we existed before our body, yet we feel that our
mind, in so far as it involves the being of the body under the form
of eternity, is eternal ; and that this manner of its existence cannot
be described by time or explained in terms of duration. Thus our
mind can only so far be said to endure, and its existence be described
by a determined time, as it involves the actual existence of the body ;
and it hath only so far the power of limiting the existence of things
by time, and conceiving them under the category of duration.'

Observe, again, how distinctly the notion of persistence in
time is cut off from that of eternity. Spinoza's eternal life is
not a continuance of existence but a manner of existence ;
something which can be realized here and now as much as at
any other time and place ; not a future reward of the soul's
perfection but the soul's perfection itself. In which, it is almost
needless to remind the reader, he agrees with the higher and
nobler interpretation of almost all the religious systems of the
world. Whether it is called the life eternal, the kingdom of
God, wisdom, liberation, or nirvana, the state of blessedness
has been put forward by the great moral teachers of mankind
as something not apart from and after this life, but entering into
and transforming it.1 The after-coming generations of dull
and backsliding disciples have degraded these glories of the
free human mind into gross mechanical systems of future
rewards and punishments.

But we must return to the critical study of the argument.
A difficulty presents itself at first sight, which has weighed

1 I fear this cannot be said of Mahomet, and moral enthusiasm is precisely
what the religion founded by him seems to be most wanting in,

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 295

much with those who have thought that Spinoza's only real
meaning (notwithstanding his express declaration that eternity
is out of relation to time) must be that the ultimate elements
of body and mind alike persist in other forms after the living
organism is broken up. It looks as if too much had been
proved, though not stated ; as if what is asserted of the
human mind were by implication asserted of all things what
ever. Spinoza would then be saying aloud : ' The human
mind is in a certain sense eternal ' — and adding in a whisper,
for the few who could penetrate his secret : — ' and everything
else too.' This reading was long ago put forward (still with
a certain amount of reserve) by Boullainvilliers in his so-called
' Refutation of Spinoza/ 1731, a title which thinly disguises a
popular exposition ; and it has been suggested in our own
day in Holland by Dr. Van Vloten, and lately propounded
with some confidence by Mr. Lotsy. The objections are
however insuperable. Either Spinoza gratuitously gives an
involved and obscure demonstration of a consequence which
on his metaphysical principles is perfectly simple, or his argu
ment is from beginning to end a piece of deliberate duplicity.
The first alternative is repugnant to Spinoza's intellectual
character, the second to his moral. And then, even if he
were capable of throwing dust in his readers' eyes, what pos
sible motive had he ? To save appearances, it is suggested.
If that were so, it would be a curious thing that he began to
think of saving appearances after he had written nine-tenths
of the Ethics without the slightest regard to any such pru
dential economy. There is nothing of the kind in his treat
ment of popular theology, of final causes, of free-will, of current
ethical notions, of dominant Cartesian theories. Nay, the allu
sions to common opinion in this very series of propositions are
as far from disguise and conciliation as anything in the earlier
Parts. If Spinoza's design was to save appearances, he has
gone about the work with incredible clumsiness and want of
tact. Besides all this, it is hopeless to reconcile the proposed

296 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

interpretation with Spinoza's express words. In short, I do
not see how any careful reader can on full consideration so
understand him, unless he is steadfastly minded not only to
find in the Ethics a complete modern doctrine of physiological
psychology, but to find nothing else.

Let us consider Spinoza's reasoning more narrowly. The
human body may be known as part of an eternal order, ' under
the form of eternity,' and so may any other body ; that must
be allowed. The human mind, as strictly corresponding to
the body, point for point and element for element, may be
known in like manner ; and so may the mind or complex of
mental facts corresponding to any other aggregate of matter.
Is there nothing more to be said then ? and is there no prero
gative left for man ? Yes, and a great one, the prerogative of
knowledge. If the atom of matter and the primitive cell of
organic life may be called eternal, yet their eternity is only in
the thought of the higher intelligence which knows them as
part of the immutable order. The knowledge of the material
atom ' under the form of eternity ' is not in the mind-atom
that is paired with it. But the knowledge of the human body
' under the form of eternity ' need not be in some separate
thinking being : it may be in the mind of that body itself.
The mind can know its own body ' under the form of eternity ' ;
and in knowing the body it knows itself. The knowing and
self-conscious mind is, as we saw in the Second Part, idea ideae
as well as idea. Thus it is eternal in the strength of its own
knowledge, and is conscious of its eternity. It is the clear
consciousness accompanying every act of knowledge, not any
such vague sentiment or presentiment as is relied on by the
popular doctrine of immortality, that Spinoza calls to witness
when he says : Sentimus experimnrque nos aeternos essc.

But what is the mind's knowledge of the body ' under the
form of eternity ' ? To know under the form of eternity is to
know rationally or exactly. In modern language what we
mean by having a rational knowledge of our own body is being

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 297

able to give a scientific account of its structure and functions :
and if we carried this conception into Spinoza's propositions
we should make the eternity of the mind depend on one
special kind of knowledge, and reduce the way of salvation to
a course of human physiology — a conclusion too grotesque to
dwell upon. In fact the mind's eternal knowledge of the body,
as understood by Spinoza, is not a knowledge of the human
body generically, but a relation between the particular mind
and the particular body which we should not now think of
calling knowledge at all. The key to this part of his argu
ment is the ambiguous use of the word idea on which we have
already commented in the Second Part of the Ethics. The
word is sometimes used in the common sense, as meaning a
concept in the mind referred to some object of knowledge
outside it : sometimes in the sense peculiar to Spinoza's meta
physical system, as meaning the mode of thought (which may
or may not be in a conscious mind) corresponding to a given
mode of extension. In the first sense idea is the image or
concept, ideatum the thing perceived or conceived ; in the
second idea and ideatum are one and the same thing ' ex
pressed ' in the attributes of Thought and of Extension. To
take a concrete instance, Peter thinks of Paul. The thought
in Peter's mind is in the first sense idea Pauli\ in the second
sense it is idea affectionis corporis Petri> that is, Peter's thought
about Paul is strictly parallel to a certain definite state of the
material machinery of imagination in Peter's brain. So if I
think of a geometrical proposition, the ideate of my idea is in
the one sense a set of geometrical relations in space, in the
other sense my own body (and especially my brain) as modi
fied in that particular act of thought. Now Spinoza, as we
have already pointed out, habitually carries over statements
and inferences from the one meaning of the term idea to the
other, apparently without the least suspicion that his pro
cedure is open to any objection. When I know an external
fact, the state of my mind which is my knowledge is the idea

298 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

of the external fact in one sense. But it is the idea of a cer
tain state of my own body in the other sense. Accordingly
Spinoza affirms that the mind in every act of knowledge also
knows its own body ; though so long as it perceives things
' after the common order of nature ' its knowledge of itself and
the body is not adequate.1 Now when the mind is in the act
of rational or scientific knowledge of anything whatever — in
other words, when it perceives things ' under the form of
eternity/ — Spinoza says, transferring to the relation between the
mind and its own body what belongs to the relation between
the mind and the object of knowledge, that the mind knows
its own body ' under the form of eternity.' So knowing its
own body and consequently itself, it is eternal, and depends
only on its own activity for this eternity. As Spinoza says
farther on, * the mind conceives nothing under the form of
eternity, save so far as it conceives the being of its own
body under the form of eternity, that is, save so far as it
is eternal.' (Eth. V. Pr. 31, Demonstr. ; cp. Pr. 29). The verbal
confusion involved in Spinoza's way of stating his doctrine is
no doubt surprising at the present day. But it has not been
assumed here to explain this particular doctrine ; we could
not help taking note of it, on quite independent grounds,
in going through the Second Part.2 And when we remember
that in Spinoza's time psychology was really in its infancy,
and hardly any serious attempt had been made to work out
the theory of perception, our surprise may be considerably
abated.

Apart from the peculiar form of his argument, Spinoza
falls in this place into a metaphysical difficulty of which he
was so far aware that he made a distinct effort to escape it.
The eternity of which the mind is conscious in the act of
rational knowledge is wholly out of relation to time. Also it
is distinctly stated to be a kind of existence.3 Here, then, we

1 Eth. 2, Pr. 24-29. 2 P. 196, above.

3 Hanc eius existentiam tempore definiri sive per durationem explicari non
posse. Prop. 23, Schol.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 299

have existence out of time, and a knowledge or perception of
it in consciousness. Now it is at least a serious question
whether existence out of time is conceivable. We cannot
think of existence except in terms of actual or possible ex
perience. But experience involves consciousness or at least
feeling. And it is not a metaphysical speculation, but an es
tablished fact of science, that change of some kind is the
necessary condition of all feeling and experience. Every feeling
of which we know anything or can form a notion is a feeling of
transition, of an event, of something happening : which on the
physical side is motion of some kind in the sentient organism.
Even an apparently continuous sensation is a series of
many rapidly succeeding nervous shocks. The more we
analyse feeling, the more we find change and motion to be its
constant form : and these involve time. It would seem, there
fore, that without making any transcendental or universal
affirmation, but as a matter of human experience as far as it
has gone, we must say that existence out of time is a combi
nation of words to which we can attach no real meaning. The
position involves more consequences than can be here dis
cussed ; as for instance the total rejection of all attempts,
however powerful and ingenious, to set up an Absolute, Uncon
ditioned, Unknowable, or any form of unapproachable reality
supposed to be somehow more real than the things we feel
and know. For the present it is enough to beg the reader to
believe that such a position is philosophically tenable, not
withstanding that (as he can see for himself) it is in no way
repugnant to common sense. If, being valiant in speculation
and disregarding objections of this kind, we begin to talk
about something alleged to exist without relation to time, the
objection will be forced upon us in a practical shape by the
extreme difficulty we shall soon find in pursuing our discourse
without manifest contradictions. Probably the objection did
not occur to Spinoza in the shape in which it is here put : for
that shape is the result of modern inquiries. But he felt the

300 SPINOZA; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

logical difficulty of discussing eternity in the language of time ;
and he endeavoured to secure himself by the following char
acteristic remark.

' We shall here note that, although we be now certain that the
mind, so far as it doth conceive things under the form of eternity, is
eternal ; yet, in order that our ensuing exposition may be the easier
and the better understood, we shall consider the mind (like as we
have done thus far) as if at a given moment it began to be, and
to understand things under the form of eternity ; and this we may
safely do without any risk of error, so that we use care to conclude
nothing except from evident premisses.' l

Having laid down this caution, Spinoza sets forth the
' intellectual love of God ' which is the crown of the mind's
perfection. It has already been stated that the most perfect
activity and excellence of the mind is to understand things
with the third or intuitive kind of knowledge ; and that this
begets the highest degree of contentment attainable by human
nature.2 Again, this knowledge implies the knowledge of
God ; hence the delight of the highest intellectual activity is
a pleasure accompanied with the idea of God as its cause.
That is, it is love of God ; ' not in that we conceive him ' adds
Spinoza ' as now present, but in that we understand God as
eternal, and this is what I call the intellectual love of God.' 3
Like the knowledge from which it springs, it is eternal ; on
which there is another curious remark.

c Although this love toward God hath had no beginning, yet it
hath all the perfections of love in the same manner as if it had arisen
in time, as we feigned in the corollary to the foregoing proposition.
And herein there is no difference but that the mind hath eternally
had the same perfections which (as we feigned) accrued to it at a par
ticular time, and that accompanied by the idea of God as the eternal
cause thereof. And since pleasure consisteth in a passage to greater
perfection, 'tis plain blessedness must consist in this, that the mind
hath perfection in full possession.'

Here, the reader will observe, we are required to form the

1 Prop. 31, Schol. 2 Propp. 25, 27. 3 Pr. 32, Coroll.

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 301

idea of an eternal causation ; and this lands us in an impossi
bility if we regard the cause as an antecedent of the effect, as
in that case we have to conceive a relation which is in time
and out of time at once. But this difficulty would probably
not touch Spinoza. There is nothing to show that he con
ceived cause and effect as being necessarily antecedent and
consequent ; on the contrary, it is pretty clear from the First
Part of the Ethics that he did not. God, as the absolute
first cause, is the immediate cause of motion and matter, and
they of all material things ; and similar relations hold in the
other Attributes. But there is here no question of priority in
time.

Freedom from the passions, though not itself perfection,
is a condition of perfection : hence the mind, so far as it
partakes of eternity, must enjoy this freedom, and Spinoza
naturally proceeds to show that ' the mind is not exposed,
except while the body endures, to those emotions which
are reckoned as passions.' Whence it follows that none
but the intellectual love is eternal And here for the first
time Spinoza takes distinct notice of the common opinion of
immortality.

* If we consider the general opinion of mankind, we shall
find that they are indeed aware of the eternity of their own
mind ; but confound the same with duration, and ascribe it to
the imagination or memory, which they suppose to remain
after death.' l This explains why Spinoza throughout this
part of his work avoids the use of the term immortality, and it
exposes more fully than any comment could do the hopeless
ness of attempting to represent him as maintaining the
immortality of the soul in the ordinary sense : yet the attempt
has been made.

One more surprise remains : the philosopher is determined
to outdo the theologians with their own vocabulary. ' God
loves himself with an infinite intellectual love : ' the intellec-

1 Pr. 34, Coroll. and Schol.

302 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

tual love of human minds towards God is part of this infinite
love, and in it God may be said to love men ; in which there
is no contradiction of the foregoing statement that God
neither loves nor hates any one, since this intellectual love is
not an emotion. It is perhaps difficult to remember that the
substance of the propositions thus expressed is still purely
and simply the human mind's contemplation of itself and its
own certain knowledge as part of the infinite and necessary
order of the universe ; that for Spinoza the divine love is
nothing else than conscious acceptance of universal law, the
'welcoming every event' of the Stoics ; and that the secret of
blessedness and glory (for those titles are expressly claimed
and justified) is none other than a mind steadfastly bent on
the truth.

It seems a poor and barren conclusion to bear up the
solemnity of language : so strong is the prejudice bred of our
inveterate custom of hungering after dreams and neglecting
the realities under our hands. After all, if we turn Spinoza's
thought into a guide for action, if we translate his speculative
propositions into a practical imperative, what is the outcome?
Even that which true and fearless men have preached through
all the generations to unheeding ears. Seek the truth, fear
not and spare not : this first, this for its own sake, this only ;
and the truth itself is your reward, a reward not measured by
length of days nor by any reckoning of men. This lesson
assuredly is not an idle one, or unworthy to be set forth with
fervent and solemn words. And if any man ever had a
special title so to repeat the lesson, that man was Spinoza,
whose whole life was an example of it.

On the strength of these passages Spinoza has been called
a mystic; and, while they have perplexed philosophical
inquirers, they have exercised a sort of fascination on many
readers. As to the actual contents of them, their author is
no more a mystic than Aristotle, if, as I have endeavoured to
show, the groundwork of his doctrine is the Aristotelian

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN.

303

theory that contemplative knowledge is the highest and most
proper function of the mind, in respect of which alone it can
be said to partake of eternity. Moreover the form chosen
by Spinoza may be partly due, as I have already hinted,
to the desire of encountering theologians with their own
weapons. But there is unquestionably something of an ex
alted and mystical temper in his expressions ; and it seems
possible enough that, but for his scientific training in the
school of Descartes, he might have been a mystic indeed. If
this be so, Descartes has one claim the more to the gratitude
of mankind.

But these seemingly transcendental propositions are not
left without practical application. The intellectual love,
being a quality of the mind ' inasmuch as it is regarded as an
eternal truth depending on the nature of God,' is indestruc
tible. And the greater is the activity in a particular mind of
the clear understanding described as the second and third
kinds of knowledge, the more does the man partake of
eternity, the less is he exposed to evil passions, and the less
does he fear death (Pr. 38, 39). And then there is a sudden
return to the physical aspect of things, as if to show that it
has never been forgotten. ' He that hath a body of most
various capacities hath also a mind whose greatest part is
eternal ' (Prop. 39). For the ' power of ordering and con
necting the affections of the body according to the intellec
tual order ' is a perfection of the body. Naturally the body
includes the special organs of thought and reflexion ; the
outward and apparent excellence of the human body is not
asserted to be the necessary index of contemplative power.
At the same time Spinoza would no doubt have said that,
other things being equal, the commonly recognized qualities
of health, strength, comeliness, activity, and the like, are all in
themselves good and desirable ; and that whatever makes for
the health of the body must in some degree make for the

304 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

health of the mind. In this place his meaning is defined by
himself in a Scholium.

1 Since human bodies possess various capacities, there is no doubt
they may be of such a character as to be attached to minds that have
much knowledge of themselves and of God, and whose greatest or
chief part is eternal, and this to such a point that they scarce fear death.
But for the better understanding of this it shall be observed that we
live in perpetual mutation, and are called happy or unhappy accord
ing as we change for the better or the worse. Thus one who from
being a child or a youth becomes a corpse is said to be unhappy, and
contrariwise it is accounted happiness if we have been able to run the
full course of life with a sound mind in a sound body. And in truth he
who (like a child) hath a body of very few capacities and largely
subject to outward influences, hath a mind which, if we take it in itself,
is little or not at all aware of itself, or God, or the nature of things ;
and contrariwise he that hath a body of many capacities hath a mind
which, if we take it in itself, is very well aware of itself, of God, and
of the nature of things. Therefore it is our chief endeavour in this
life to change the infant's body, so far as its nature admits and is
convenient, into another which shall have many capacities, and shall
belong to a mind as fully aware as may be of itself, of God, and of
the nature of things ; and so that everything that belongs to its
memory or imagination shall in comparison of the understanding be
of hardly any weight.'

Here Spinoza seems to regard education, both physical
and mental, as a process of organic development not differing
in kind from the purely natural processes of growth ; a guid
ing and training of the possibilities of variation already given
in the organism. Though the point is but slightly touched,
there is enough to show a striking approximation to our most
recent discoveries in this branch of the science of human
nature, the most important and perhaps the most neglected
of its practical applications.

It has already been incidentally stated that the eternal
part of the mind is greater in some individuals and less in
others. But however this proportion may be, the eternal part
is in every case the more perfect : for this is the only truly

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 305

active part of the mind, and perfection consists in and is
measured by active power. And here Spinoza adds, rather
abruptly, a final metaphysical conclusion : namely, ' that our
mind, so far as it understands, is an eternal mode of thought,
which is determined by another eternal mode of thought,
and that again by another, and so on to infinity ; so that all
together make up the eternal and infinite understanding of
God.' The other eternal mode of thought by which the mind
is immediately determined would seem to be the thing known
by the mind ' under the form of eternity,' and the infinite
chain in which these are links to be the whole order of the
universe under the attribute of Thought. But, it may be
said, this will be only the order as existing at a given
moment, since the thing known ' under the form of eternity '
must be a particular thing. Spinoza might reply that it is
only the infirmity of human imagination that compels us to
conceive the order of things as fixed at a particular time, and
even as it is we can conceive that the state of the universe at
a given moment includes potentially the whole history for an
infinite past and future. This would involve holding that the
difference between potential and actual existence is only in
respect of human imagination, besides the assumption (made
as a matter of course by Spinoza) that our knowledge of the
laws of nature is or may be exact and universal. However,
the speculation is not pursued, and we are brought back to a
more practical ground.

' Though we knew not that our mind is eternal, we should
still put in the first place piety and religion,1 and generally
everything which in the Fourth Part we showed to belong to
valour and high-mindedness ' (Pr. 41).

The proof is simply that the virtues and the reasons for
practising them have already been established on a footing
independent of the mind's eternity.

1 These terms have been defined in Eth. 4. 37, Schol. i. Religion is all
desire and action prompted by knowledge of God, i.e., by rational knowledge :
piety is the desire of well-doing produced by a life according to reason

3o6 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

• But the belief of the common sort/ it is added, ' seemeth to be
otherwise. For they mostly seem to hold themselves to be free in
proportion as they may do after their own lusts, and to be deprived
of their right in proportion as they are bound to live after the
commandment of God's law. So they hold piety and religion, and
generally everything that belongs to firmness of mind, to be burdens,
and hope after death to cast them off and have the reward of their
service, that is of piety and religion. But not merely this hope, but
likewise (and chiefly) fear, to wit of being punished with grievous
torments after death, doth move them to live after God's law, so far
as their poverty and weakness of spirit doth admit. And if men had
not this hope and fear, but held that the mind perishes with the
body, and no longer life remains for poor mortals (worn out forsooth
with the burden of pious living), they would go back to their own
desires, guide their actions by the desire of the moment, and be
ruled rather by hazard than by themselves. Which to me seemeth
no less absurd than if a man, because he knows he cannot with
wholesome food sustain his body for all time, should choose to cram
himself with poison and deadly things ; or because he perceives that
the mind is not eternal, I mean not immortal, would therefore live as
one demented and without aid of reason. But things of such
absurdity are scarce fit to be mentioned/

The vulgar notion of virtue having a reward to claim is
further contradicted in the next and final proposition.

' Blessedness is not the prize of virtue, but virtue itself ;
nor have we the gifts of virtue through controlling our
desires, but we can control our desires because we have the
gifts of virtue.

' , . . Herewith I have finished all that I purposed to set
forth of the power of the mind over the emotions, and of her
freedom. Whence it is evident how great is the wise man's
power and his advantage over the ignorant man who is driven
by blind desire. For such a man is distracted by external
influences and in many other ways besides, and doth never
attain true contentment in his soul ; he lives as it were with
out sense of himself and God and the nature of things, and
no sooner ceases to suffer than he ceases to be. Whereas the
wise man, if we take him as such, is of a constant mind, and,

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 307

being aware of himself and God and the nature of things in a
way of eternal necessity, doth never cease to be, but is ever
in possession of true contentment. And if the way I have
shown to lead hither seems exceedingly hard, yet it may
be discovered. That truly must be hard which is so seldom
found. For if salvation were so easy and could be found
with little trouble, how should it come to pass that nearly all
mankind neglect it ?- But every excellent work is as difficult
as it is rare.'

These are the last words of Spinoza's Ethics ; words of
gravity but not of discouragement. In their literal sense
they are not quite consistent with what he has said in a
former proposition ; for we have there read that it is not
difficult to pursue the life of reason and freedom : and such a
life must lead ere long, on Spinoza's principles, to wisdom
and true knowledge. Perhaps he contemplated a practical
standard of righteous living and happiness attainable by
ordinary men with a good will, and a higher kind of satis
faction accessible only by strenuous thinking and the habit of
contemplative science. He seems to have thought it at least
improbable that the great bulk of mankind should ever be
able to dispense with the external coercion of human laws
and ordinances, or even with the belief in supernatural re
wards and punishments, as a guide of conduct. Once more
we note how near he comes to the Stoics. The wise man is
thoroughly possessed of the knowledge that virtue is self-
sufficient, and therein finds his happiness, whatever his
external conditions : but the perfect ideal of wisdom can
scarcely be realized by man. The philosopher nevertheless
makes this his aim, and comes as near it as he can. The way
is open to everyone alike : but as it is, the bulk of man
kind are governed by the coarser motives which alone they
appreciate, and which experience has shown to be necessary
for the maintenance of society. Such is the Stoic position as
well as Spinoza's, In so far as this is a statement of fact, we

X 2

308 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

have no right to ask whether it is agreeable or flattering to
human pride, but only whether it is true ; and, whether we
consider Spinoza's time or our own, we shall find it not easy
to deny. So far as it implies the absence of hope that the
description may some day cease to be true, at least as regards
the commonwealth of civilized nations, we may regret that
Spinoza did not see his way to believing in the improvement
of mankind. But before we pass any intellectual or moral
censure upon him for this, we should ask ourselves whether,
his circumstances and his knowledge of history and institutions
being such as they were, he had reasonable grounds for ex
pecting any continuous improvement. He wrote in a time
which on the whole was one of reaction, and in which the
blessings of a far distant past, partly by the legendary bias
common to all ages, partly under the special influence of the
Renaissance, were vastly exaggerated. The movement of
free thought seemed arrested ; in politics everything was
confusion ; the growth of science was only beginning.
Spinoza was not the man to win a cheap reputation for large-
heartedness by facile promises of a golden age.

In this last Part of the Ethics we have traced a curiously
involved and artificial argument, and have tried to show to
what extent it turns on Spinoza's peculiar use of language
which modern criticism cannot allow to pass current. Yet
his doctrine of the eternity of the mind must remain one of
the most brilliant endeavours of speculative philosophy, and
it throws a sort of poetical glow over the formality of his
exposition. We have already said that it has a sufficiently
certain practical lesson. But still we linger over it, seeking
for some expression which may so give us the central idea
that we can accept and use it for ourselves, some concentra
tion of the commanding thought without the precarious
dialectical form in which it is clothed. If the task were still
to attempt, it might be a hard one ; but there is no need for
any such attempt. The essence of Spinoza's thought is

THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN. 309

already secured for us by a master who combines delicacy of
perception and the intellectual tact which is the flower of
criticism with consummate power over language. M. Renan
has expressed it in the perfectly chosen words which I have
placed at the head of this chapter, and with which, so far as I
can preserve them in translation, I shall now end it : Reason
leads Death in triumph, and the work done for Reason is done
for eternity.

310 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER X.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE.

Ond' egli ancora : Or di' ; sarebbe il peggio
Per 1'uomo in terra, se non fosse cive ?
Si, rispos' io : e qui ragion non cheggio.

DANTE : Paradiso, 8, 115.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is
enemy to every man j the same is consequent to the time wherein men live
without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall
furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for industry, because the
fruit thereof is uncertain : and consequently no culture of the earth ; no navigation,
nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea ; no commodious building ;
no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force ; no
knowledge of the face of the earth ; no account of time ; no arts ; no letters ; no
society ; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death ;
and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

HOBBES : Leviathan, ch. 13.

THE metaphysical parts of Spinoza's philosophy are expressed,
it must be allowed, in a manner not congenial to English
habits of thought : and in studying his ' Ethics ' the English
reader may be at some disadvantage as compared with those
who have been trained in a Continental school. When we
come to Spinoza's theory of politics the balance is redressed.
Though not actually a disciple of Hobbes, Spinoza so closely
follows him that the philosophy of law and government which
appears in the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' is just indi
cated in the ' Ethics,' and is worked out in the ' Tractatus
Politicus,' distinctly belongs to the general doctrine character
istic of the English school of jurisprudence. This doctrine
was first clearly given out by Hobbes, then taken up after a

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 311

long interval by Bentham, then carried on with additions
into a new generation by Austin ; it has in our own time been
endowed by the work of Sir Henry Maine and others with
the breadth and flexibility that were wanting in its earlier
stages, and is now accepted, with more or less development and
modification, by nearly all English writers who pay any serious
attention to the scientific study of law.

Hence the leading ideas of Spinoza's treatise on Politics
ought to have for an English reader nothing very strange in
them. The treatise was the latest work of his life, and is un
finished ; but that which remained to be added would have
been concerned mostly with points of detail. The editors of
the ' Opera Posthuma ' have given in the preface an extract
from a letter of Spinoza's written while he was engaged on
this work.

< I should not miss this opportunity were I not already engaged by
a matter I judge more to the purpose, and which I think will also please
you better, that is, the composition of a treatise on Politics, which
on your persuasion I began some time ago. Of this treatise there
are six chapters now finished. The first contains a kind of introduc
tion to the body of the work. The second treats of the law of nature ;
the third, of the right of the supreme magistrate \ the fourth, what
affairs of state be in the supreme magistrate's discretion ; the fifth,
what is that last and chief good which a society may contemplate ;
and the sixth, by what method a monarchic il government ought to
be established that it may not slide into a tyranny. At present I
am on the seventh chapter, wherein I formally prove all the heads of
the foregoing sixth chapter touching the institution of a well ordered
monarchy. After this I shall proceed to aristocracy and popular
government, lastly to legislation and other particular questions
regarding political science.'

Neither the date, the occasion alluded to in the first sen
tence, nor the correspondent's name is disclosed. The
chapters on aristocracy were afterwards added, and one on
democracy was begun, in the middle of which the treatise
breaks off. There is another letter of Spinoza's to Jarig Jellis

312 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

(Ep. 47), dated February 17, 1671, which seems to throw some
more light on the matter. In this he says : —

' A friend of mine sent me a while ago a book entitled " Homo
Politicus," 1 whereof I had heard much talk. On perusal of it I
found it as mischievous a book as can be devised or composed by
man. To this author's mind the chief good is rank and wealth, and
thereto he directs his teaching. . . . For the rest, he mightily re
commends deceit, promising and breaking one's promise, lying,
false swearing, and much else of the same kind. When I had read
all this I fell to thinking how I might indirectly controvert this author
by a book in which I should treat of the chief good, then show the
distracted and wretched state of those who seek office and fortune,
and lastly prove by convincing reasons and abundant examples that
commonwealths must needs perish, and have perished, through men's
insatiable appetite for these things.'

It is possible that we have here the germ of the ' Tractatus
Politicus,' though the plan sketched out is very different from
that which Spinoza began to execute. All that is left of it is
the problem, treated in a purely scientific manner, of deter
mining the conditions of stability in political institutions.
Spinoza's unfinished treatise cannot be said to hold a place
in political science at all comparable to that which is held by
the ' Ethics ' in philosophy. So far as I know, it has been but
little studied and has had no marked influence on Continental
thought. In England, where it might have had a better
chance, the general prejudice against Spinoza prevented it
from obtaining the attention it deserved. Thus the political
theory of Spinoza has been left as it were stranded between
the two main currents of speculation. We shall find, however,
that the examination of it is no waste of time. The ' Tracta
tus Politicus ' is much more than what it appears to be at
first sight, a mere adaptation of Hobbes to the terminology of
the 'Ethics.' Hobbes is nowhere expressly mentioned by

1 Presumably the work catalogued by Barbier in his Dictionnaire des ouvrages
anonymes (No 20,602 in ed. 1824). ' Homo politicus, hoc est, consiliarius novus,
officiarius et aulicus secundum hodiernam praxin, auctore Pacifico a Lapide
(Christophoro Rapp, Cancellario Electorali Borussize). Cosmopoli, 1665, in-4..'

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 313

Spinoza, save once in answer to a correspondent, and once in
a note to the 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.' 1 But the depar
tures from his method and conclusions involve a good deal of
tacit criticism ; and this implied criticism takes a strikingly
modern line on some points. For substantial anticipation of
modern constitutional doctrines it would be unreasonable to
look in a writer of Spinoza's time. Occasional remarks occur,
however, which make us regret that Spinoza never wrote his
chapter on the theory of legislation. He points out with per
fect clearness the futility of sumptuary laws, and assigns the
true ground of it, namely, that society has no interest in en
forcing them. ' Laws which can be broken without any wrong
to one's neighbour are made light of ; and so far from such
laws restraining the appetite and lusts of mankind, they rather
heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata?
Men who have the leisure will always find the wit to evade laws
made to regulate such matters as cannot be wholly forbidden,
banquets, games, apparel, and the like ; wherein excess only is
evil, and that to be measured by the particular citizen's for
tune ; so that it cannot be defined by statutes of general ap
plication.' 3 Spinoza has been charged, and still is charged by
some of his critics, with preaching absolutism. The whole
scope of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus/ which is an ela
borate plea for liberty of thought and expression, is a refuta
tion of this : and there also occur in the ' Tractatus Politicus '
many sentences and maxims which show a very different tem
per. Such are the following : — ' It makes for slavery, not
peace, to deliver all power to one man.' ' It is better that the
just counsels of a realm should be laid open to enemies, than

1 Cap. 1 6, § 34, n. ' In whatever commonwealth a man is, he may be free.
For certainly a man may be so far free as he is governed by reason. But reason
every way persuadeth to peace (N.B. Hobbes is otherwise) ; but this cannot be
secured unless the laws of the commonwealth are kept.' There is an oversight
here, for Hobbes makes peace the first object of rational desire. Leviathan,
c. 13, ad Jin. and c. 14.

2 'We spurn at rule, and seek forbidden ioys.'— Ovid, Amor. Hi. 4. 17.
8 Tract. Polit. c. 10, § 5.

314 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

that the wicked secrets of tyrants should be concealed from
citizens.' With this last saying we may contrast one of
Hobbes : — ' In deliberations that ought to be kept secret,
whereof there be many occasions in public business, the
counsels of many, and especially in assemblies, are danger
ous.' l

It may be convenient, before entering upon details, to give
a general view of Spinoza's plan, and of the extent to which
he agrees with and differs from Hobbes. They both aim at
the construction of a science of politics on the basis of the
known facts of human nature ; and the assumptions they
make about average human nature are much the same. But
Hobbes, writing with a view to immediate controversies, does
not adventure himself to any length on the path of speculative
construction. The practical bearing of his argument may be
summed up in one sentence : Every monarch ought to be ab
solutely supreme in matters both spiritual and temporal ;
England is a monarchy ; therefore the king of England is ab
solute. Spinoza, on the other hand, undertakes the ideal con
struction of the most stable types of institutions for monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy respectively. He goes nearly as
far as Hobbes, but not quite, in his dislike and distrust of re
volutions ; and, probably taking from Hobbes his notions of
the English Constitution and of contemporary English history,
gives the English civil war as an instance of a rebellion which
had ended in complete failure. He thinks it must be almost
always a fatal mistake to attempt a fundamental change in an
existing government, of whatever type it may be. But in the
abstract his preference is for democracy, a preference more
distinctly expressed in the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus '
than anywhere else. Democracy is defined, however, in such
a way as to include most of the governments commonly
called aristocratic or constitutional. It is also remarkable
that Spinoza's ideal monarchy is on the whole a more popular

1 Leviathan, c. 25.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 315

government than his ideal aristocracy. His theory of sove
reignty is essentially the same as that of Hobbes. But he
does not carry it out into the same unqualified consequences.
According to Hobbes the origin of the State is a covenant
of mutual concession prompted by the mutual fear of men in
a lawless condition, and by the rational desire of peace which
is the first law of nature ; where a law of nature means a rule
discovered by reason as a means toward self-preservation.
The sovereign, whether he be one man or an assembly of men,
bears the person of the united multitude who ' reduce all their
wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will,' and in this union
become a commonwealth. The collected power and authority
of every citizen is transferred to him by the common man
date, to be used at his discretion for their peace and common
defence. Further, the mandate is irrevocable, since it is not
several from each citizen to the sovereign, but depends on the
social covenant of all the citizens. Every subject has cove
nanted with every other that their natural right shall be and
remain transferred to the sovereign. Hobbes admits that the
unanimous assent of the sovereign and all the subjects (not
of the subjects without the sovereign) may determine the
sovereign's right ; the result of which would be a total disso
lution of government and return to the natural state of war.
Whether the whole commonwealth, including the sovereign,
might change the form of government without passing through
anarchy is a question which, so far as I know, he left untouched.
At all events, the sovereign is an agent whose powers cannot
be effectually recalled or renounced in any practically possible
circumstances : and no subject can complain of acts of state
done by the sovereign, because every such act has been autho
rized by the subject and must be deemed his own. Modern
readers cry out, of course, that all this scheme of covenants
and mandates is the purest fiction. But Hobbes is not alto
gether unprepared even for this. He catches the objecting
individual in a dilemma. Either you have agreed, he says, to

3i6 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

transfer your power to the sovereign or you have not. If you
have, then you are estopped from disputing the acts of the
sovereign. If you have not, you declare yourself a stranger
to the State, and therefore the State has no duties towards
you and may treat you as an enemy. Apart from these par
ticular turns of dialectic, Hobbes' argument always comes
round to offering the choice between submission and war ; and
war is for him so clearly the worst of evils that the choice
cannot be doubtful. Whether the argument is not equally
good to establish (as Dante long before had actually sought
to establish) the necessity of an universal monarch to keep
the peace between sovereign states, as the sovereign in each
state between individuals, is another question to which Hobbes
does not seem to have applied himself.

In Spinoza we do not find these rigorous extremes. He
describes government as founded on the common consent of
the governed, but there is no elaborate analysis of the sup
posed contract. Again, he regards the power of the State
not as swallowing up the natural power or right of the indi
vidual to act as he thinks best for his own interest, but as
holding out effectual motives to the citizens to agree in exer
cising that right or power in a particular way, namely, by
living peaceably under the laws. Further, although he no
where expressly says that rebellion is right even in an
extreme case, he does say quite plainly that no government
is really absolute, since in the last resort its power is limited
by the endurance of its subjects, and there are some things
which no community will endure. Thus a supreme govern
ment, though it cannot offend against its own civil laws, may
in a certain sense offend against the law of nature. Rulers
who so carry themselves as to invite the contempt or hatred
of their subjects run the risk of committing political suicide.
* Such deeds turn fear into indignation, and the state of civil
society into a state of war.' As far as the theory of the
English constitution goes, Parliament might pass an Act

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 317

forbidding people to perform their contracts. But in that
case Parliament would cease to be obeyed, and Englishmen
would have to find some other form of government. More
over Spinoza holds it competent to the sovereign power not
only to interpret but to alter the fundamental laws of the
commonwealth, provided that it can be done without provok
ing a revolution that would in fact, not only by the construc
tive dissolution of a supposed covenant, dissolve civil society ;
which Hobbes does not seem to contemplate. There is
indeed one natural right which Hobbes holds to be inalien
able, the right of personal self-defence ; and consequently the
right of inflicting punishment ' is not grounded on any con
cession or gift of the subjects,' but is part of the natural right
of self-preservation exercised by the sovereign on behalf of
the commonwealth. ' For the subjects did not give the sove
reign that right ; but only in laying down theirs, strengthened
him to use his own, as he should think fit, for the preservation
of them all : so that it was not given, but left to him, and to
him only.' l Spinoza's exceptions are much larger. His
language on this point in the i^th Chapter of the ' Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus ' is particularly explicit. In the fore
going chapter he has laid down the theory of absolute
sovereignty as founded on a concurrent cession of individual
rights, without even Hobbes' reservation of self-defence.
But he now points out that absolute sovereignty is an ideal
never completely realized. No man can ever put himself
wholly at another's discretion ; nor have there ever been
rulers who did not stand in some fear of their subjects.

'In truth, if men could so far lose their natural right, that
for time to come they might do nothing without the will of them
that held sovereign right, then governors might without remedy use
all extremities of violence towards their subjects : which opinion I
think no man can entertain. Wherefore it must be allowed that

1 Leviathan^ ch. 28.

318 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

every man reserveth to himself much of his own right, which there
fore dependeth on no other man's resolution, but on his own alone.'1

In fine, the right of a government over its subjects is
really its power of commanding their obedience : but this
does not mean only commanding by force or threats, for it is
the fact of obedience, not the motive, that makes men
subjects. The subject fulfils the law whether he obeys from
hope, fear, both together, or any other cause.

' A man is then most under another's government when he
determines of full consent to observe all that other's orders ; and it
follows that the prince who hath most dominion is he that reigns
over his subjects' minds. But if they had most dominion who be
most feared, then that eminence would manifestly belong to the
subjects of despots, who by their despots are most greatly feared.'

And though governments cannot control men's thoughts
and affections directly, they may do it indirectly. This again
looks like a reflection on Hobbes, who is emphatic on the
point that governments can control nothing but overt acts.

We may now understand Spinoza's answer to his corre
spondent in Ep. 50 : —

' As concerning the politics, the difference betwixt Hobbes and
myself of which you ask consists in this, that I ever save natural
right harmless, and hold that the sovereign magistrate in any state
hath no more right over his subjects than is measured by the excess
of his power over the subject ; which ' (i.e. the identity of right and
power) ' always takes place in the state of nature/

It would appear that altogether Spinoza attached de
cidedly less importance than Hobbes to the question of
the origin of government. What he regarded as the main
thing was the fact of a government existing and being able
to maintain itself. In Hobbes' view it is difficult to see how
a government once established can ever lose its title : the
Leviathan once framed not only exists de jure, but is knit

1 Cf. Hume, in the Essay on the Origin of Government. ' In all govern
ments there is a perpetual intestine struggle, open or secret, between Authority
and Liberty, and neither of them can ever absolutely prevail in the contest. '

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE.

319

together by a vinculum juris which nobody can undo. He
is driven to admit in some measure the principle of allegiance
to de facto governments : but all he will say is that, if the
rightful government becomes unable to protect any of its
subjects, these subjects are remitted to their natural right of
self-preservation, and may give their allegiance to any power
from which protection can be had. His greatest aversion
and contempt is for the doctrine of mixed government ; and
his logical triumph over the fallacy of divided sovereignty is
hardly distinguishable from his practical dislike of all attempts
to shift the centre of power or divide the substance of it from
the form. While Hobbes expressly admits that an aristocracy
or democracy may exist under monarchical appearances, he
utterly refuses to consider whether there is anything to be
said for holding the constitution of England to be of this
kind. The name of monarchy seems enough to dazzle his
judgment when he comes to the specific case. Spinoza
does not share this temper. His theoretical analysis does
not prevent him from having regard to the convenience of
mankind, and he is no more an absolutist than Bentham. In
his ideal commonwealths he makes elaborate provision for
checks and balances, which in their spirit almost anticipate
the constitutional publicists of the eighteenth century.

The point on which Hobbes and Spinoza are most
thoroughly in accord is the total rejection of all claims, on
grounds of religion or otherwise, to set up a jurisdiction equal
or superior to that of the civil power. They both denounce
ecclesiastical pretensions at every opportunity ; and, while
they both admit that if a private man has a special revelation
he must obey it even against the State, they give it to be
understood, in almost identical terms, that the possibility of a
special revelation need not be practically considered. No
man can have immediate assurance of its truth except him to
whom it is actually revealed, and therefore no private citizen
is bound to take notice of anything alleged for revealed truth

320 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

by another, * who, being a man, may err, and, which is more,
may lie.' l One who sets up for a prophet is at the very least
bound to prove his office by miracles ; Hobbes adds as a no
less indispensable test of a true prophet that he must not
preach any religion but the established one. Spinoza sug
gests that even if a real prophet appeared in a modern com
monwealth there would be no strict obligation to receive him.
So that ' in a commonwealth, a subject that has no certain
and assured revelation particularly to himself concerning the
will of God is to obey for such the command of the common
wealth.' 2 The State is supreme over all persons and in all
causes, ecclesiastical and temporal, except in hypothetical
events which cannot happen.

We have seen that Spinoza first gives the theory of
sovereignty in unqualified terms, and then states in another
chapter the qualifications which he sees to be needful in
applying it to existing facts. This deserves a word of
special notice. The faculty of clearly grasping an abstract
doctrine, and withal remembering that it is an abstraction,
and not a complete account of the actual phenomena, is
by no means a common one. In our own day it has been
reserved for Sir Henry Maine 3 to point out with accuracy the
ideal character of the conception of sovereignty and positive
law developed by Hobbes and his followers, and thus to
furnish the means of assigning its real philosophical and prac
tical value. That Spinoza should have seriously attempted
a similar process, and to a certain extent succeeded, is
perhaps not the least of the circumstances that show the in
dependence of his thought even where there is the strongest
appearance of his following others.

Having thus indicated the general nature of Spinoza's
political theory, we may proceed to a more detailed view of

1 Leviathan, ch. 32.

2 Leviathan, ch. 26 ; cp. Spinoza, Tract. Polit. c. 3, § IO ; Tract. Theol.-Pol.
C. 1 6, §§ 6 1 sqq. and 19, passim.

3 Lectures on. Sovereignty in The Early History of Institutions.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 321

the 'Tractatus Politicus.' In the introductory chapter
Spinoza announces his intention of dealing with the subject
in a purely scientific manner. On this point he repeats
in substance what he had said in the Preface to the Third
Part of the Ethics. One remarkable passage betrays how
strangely he underrated the extent and complexity of the
problem.

' I am firmly convinced that all the kinds of commonwealths
which can be devised for men's living together in harmony, and
likewise the means whereby a multitude should be guided and kept
within settled bounds, have been shown by experience ; so that I do
not think there is anything not repugnant to experience and practice
which we can discover by meditation on this topic, but hath before
now been known and put to trial. For such is the temper of men
that they cannot live except in some common bond of laws ; and
the laws of commonwealths and affairs of state have been founded
and considered by men of the greatest wit (whether by policy or by
craft) ; wherefore 'tis hardly credible that we should be able to
devise anything fitted to be of use to society which opportunity or
accident hath never offered, and which men busied on public affairs
and mindful of assuring their own interest have not discerned.'
(c. i, § 3)-

Yet this only seems strange to the eyes of us who have
learnt by fairly trying scientific methods how complex the
world is. We have already seen that Spinoza's belief in a
comparatively short road to certain and complete knowledge
of everything was the belief of almost all the aspiring minds
of his time. Not only Descartes before him, but Leibnitz
after him, sought and expected to find universal methods,
and looked forward to the consummation of the sciences
within a few generations. And here we may be allowed to
put in a word for Bacon, who has been both praised and
blamed more inconsiderately than almost any philosophical
writer. Bacon's belief in a general art of scientific discovery
which would go near to equalize men's intellects is now easily
seen to have been erroneous. But it was not a singular or

322 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

a perverse belief at the time. If we ridicule Bacon on this
score, we must ridicule him for not having known more than
Leibnitz did a century later. So too in the present case of
politics, Spinoza's opinion that no experiment of importance
remained to be tried was the opinion generally held by the
most competent persons of his time. The variety of constitu
tions then existing in the remaining Italian republics, the free
cities of the Empire, and the Swiss cantons, appears to have
suggested that all possible variety was exhausted rather
than to have stimulated curiosity. Certainly Hobbes never
dreamt of the great experiment impending in England,
which has been directly and indirectly the parent of so many
more.

Again, the writers of the eighteenth century treated the
English constitution as having reached its final development ;
and they regarded a state which Hobbes would have called
anarchy as the highest actual and theoretical perfection of
government. Nor had they any clear notion of the distinc
tion between the outlines of positive constitutional law and
the great body of informal constitutional usage which clothes
the legal skeleton with full and vaiious life. Hume's politi
cal essays, though full of brilliant remarks, are still in the
main unfruitful. His ' Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth ' is
not unlike the ' Tractatus Politicus ' in design and arrange
ment, allowance being made for the difference of scale, and it
has about as much or as little practical value. In Montes
quieu we find the true forerunner of the modern historical
method. But to pursue this here would be to go too far
astray.

It may be well to translate the next following paragraph
of the introductory chapter of the ' Tractatus Politicus,' as it
contains a phrase (italicized in the translation) which is often
and deservedly quoted by modern writers on Spinoza.

' In applying myself therefore to the science of politics, I pre
tended nothing new or unknown, but only to prove by certain and

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 323

undoubted reasons, or to deduce from the constitution of man itself,
the propositions most agreeable to practical use. And in order to
inquire of the matters of this science with the same freedom of mind
we are wont to use in the mathematics, I have made it my especial
care neither to mock, to bewail, nor to denounce men's actions, but to
understand them : and to this end I have considered men's emotions,
such as love, hate, anger, envy, honour, pity, and other agitations of
the mind, not as defects of human nature, but as properties which
belong to it in like manner as to the nature of air there belong heat,
cold, storms, thunder, and the like ; which though they be incon
venient, yet are necessary and have constant causes whereby we
endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind rejoices in the
right contemplation of them no less than in the knowledge of such
things as are pleasing to the senses.'

Political science is to concern itself with human nature not
as it ought to be, but as it is, It must not be assumed that men
will act in public affairs according to the true dictates of reason
unless it is made their obvious interest not to do otherwise.
For the welfare of the State it is all one from what motive
men obey the law and perform the duties of their station, so
that good government be secured. ' Freedom and strength
of mind are virtues in private men ; but the virtue of govern
ments is safety.' Spinoza proceeds to consider the funda
mental principles of government, starting from the facts of
average human nature (cap. 2). We translate the paragraph
in which the philosophical grounds of his theory are laid down.

' Any particular thing in nature may be adequately conceived,
whether it existeth or no. And as the beginning of existence of
particular things in nature cannot be deduced from their definition,
so neither can their continuance in existing. For the thing itself, as
it is in our conception,1 remains the same after it has begun to exist
as before. As therefore the beginning of their existence cannot
follow from their essence ' (i.e. the knowledge of what a thing is
differs from the knowledge that such a thing is), ' so neither doth
their continuance in existence : but to go on existing they need the
same power which they need for beginning to exist. Whence it

1 Essentia idcalis ; a term which does not, I think, occur in the Ethics.

\ 2

324 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

follows that the power of all things in nature, whereby they exist,
and therefore whereby they have effects, can be no other than the
eternal power of God himself. For if it were any other created
power, it could not maintain itself, nor by consequence other things,
but would need for its own continuing in existence the same power
that was needed to create it.

' Now from this conclusion, that the power of things in nature,
whereby they exist and work, is identically the power of God, we
easily understand what is natural law or right.1 For since God hath
right to everything, and the right of God is nothing else than the
power of God, so far as it is regarded as absolutely free, it follows that
everything in nature hath of nature so much right as it hath power to
exist and work ; seeing the power of each several thing in nature,
whereby it doth exist and work, is no other than the free and
absolute power of God. Therefore I understand by the law of
nature the statutes or rules of nature according to which all things
happen, that is, merely the power of nature. And thus the
natural right of the whole of nature, and by consequence of each
several individual, doth extend so far forth as its power; conse
quently whatever every man does by the rules of his own nature,
that he does by perfect natural right, and hath right over nature so
far as by his power he prevails.'

This statement of Spinoza's, and the corresponding
passages in Hobbes, appear to us at this day far-fetched if
not perverse. It is so much easier to say at once that such
phrases as law of nature, natural right, have no meaning in
jurisprudence and political science ; that laws conferring
rights can exist only in a society ; and that, so far as we
can conceive man as not a member of society, we must con
ceive him as not subject to any law. But a dominant set of
phrases, however inappropriate to a particular writer's purpose,
is not thrown aside without struggles. In Spinoza's time the
Law of Nature was not only still commonly spoken of and
appealed to, but the idea had received an important revival
and extension at the hands of Grotius and his contemporaries.
To discard the term would have been simply impossible.

1 Spinoza uses the one term ins naturae, The double meaning cannot be
given by any single word in English.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 325

Both Hobbes and Spinoza could only strive to fix a new mean
ing of their own upon it. It may help us to understand the
meaning sought by Spinoza if we here shortly recapitulate
the position assumed by his philosophy with regard to the
fundamental ideas of ethics and law.

The notions of good and bad arise as soon as we consider
an individual whose existence and welfare are distinguishable
from the existence of the universe as a whole. For every
creature some things are good and others bad. But the
same things need not be good and bad for different indivi
duals, or for. the same individual in different circumstances.

When we have a society composed of individual men
capable of independent action, that which is good or bad for
the society becomes right or wrong for the individuals com
posing it. What is esteemed good or bad by the society at
large, or by the opinion prevailing in it, is prescribed or for
bidden to the individual members as being right or wrong.
This is what modern English writers have called Positive
Morality.

When in a particular society there has been formed
an organized government provided with definite means of
making itself obeyed, and that government prescribes, per
mits, and forbids particular kinds of conduct, then conduct
falling under these rules acquires further special qualities.
What is prescribed is legal duty or just ; what is allowed is
legally right ; what is forbidden is legally wrong or unjust.
This is, in modern language, Positive Law.

Again, certain rules of conduct may be discovered by
reflection on the general conditions of human nature, and
these rules are independent of particular social systems.
They may be regarded either as scientific statements about
the conduct men actually pursue, in so far as their reason is
not disturbed by passion, error, and prejudice, or as moral
precepts setting forth an ideal to which, as reasonable men,
we shall endeavour to conform in our way of life. Such

326 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

propositions or precepts are given in the fourth part of
Spinoza's * Ethics/ and answer in a general way to the rules
of conduct given by Hobbes as laws of nature.1 So far as a
man follows these precepts, he is said to live according to
reason.

It is true that Spinoza does not clearly recognize the dis
tinction between Positive Morality and Positive Law, or
rather omits to take note of the existence of Positive
Morality. Indeed the conception is a modern one. But it
fits well enough into Spinoza's scheme, and the statement
would have been so incomplete without it that I have felt
justified in adding it. Now it will be observed that in this
scheme right and wrong are terms of civil or social morality,
not of the natural morality which is concerned with the self-
maintenance of the individual. For the individual, as such,
there is only good and bad. Nevertheless most things which
are good or bad for the individual are also right or wrong, in
other words good or bad for society. Hence most things
which are first regarded as simply good or bad come to
acquire a certain value in the social scale of rightness and
wrongness ; and ethical associations derived from the com
munity are at last carried over to the general notions of
goodness and badness themselves. A similar association
takes place, but to a less extent, between the ethical and
legal notions of right and wrong. Hence the intellectual
analysis is difficult, and is apt to excite in the moral sense a
kind of jealousy bordering on repugnance.

On the other hand there are elements of possible conflict,
We have at least two distinct sources of rules of conduct, or,
according to the developed statement here presented, three.
One set of rules is propounded by reason as good ; another by
the community as right ; another by the civil power as law.

1 Leviathan, c. 14. Hobbes distinguishes between ius and lex, and defines
lex naturalis, in effect, as a rule of conduct discovered by reason, and tending to
the self-preservation of the agent.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 327

Now it may be that all these rules coincide, so far as they
cover the same ground ; but we are not entitled to assume
that they will. Indeed there could not be a complete and
universal coincidence unless all societies and all governments
were guided by right reason ; which is not the case. Positive
Law may conflict with Positive Morality ; both Positive Law
and Positive Morality may conflict with the dictates of reason.
If this happens, which are we to follow ? Spinoza does not
explicitly discuss questions of this kind. All he has to say on
the matter is that reason bids man to live sociably with his
fellow-men, and prescribes obedience to the civil law as being,
in general, the surest way to that end. And when reason
says, ' obey the law,' we follow reason in obeying the law,
though the particular law may be one that we disapprove.
This general indication of the relation of Ethics to Politics is
perhaps as much as can be expected in a political treatise.
It is also proper to observe that although Spinoza constantly
implies that the ethical conceptions of right and wrong are
of a quasi-legal character, and are not applicable except to
men living in society, this is not necessary to his political
theory as such. Having premised this much, we resume the
order of the treatise.

Every man does what he thinks most for his own interest :
and whatever he actually does, whether reasonably or
foolishly, he has, in Spinoza's terminology, a natural right to
do. Men have conflicting interests in so far as they are
subject to passion ; and man is more formidable to man than
any other creature. But men are subject to passions ; there
fore men left to themselves would be in frequent conflict, or
in other words the state of nature is a state of war. On the
other hand, a state of life in which every man must fight for
his own hand is too precarious to be tolerable. Man cannot
exercise his faculties with any pleasure or convenience except
in society, where his strength is multiplied by union : and in
this sense it may justly be said that man is a social animal.

328 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

When a multitude of men live together in society, each
individual, being powerless as against the united will of the
rest, has no more right than the society chooses to leave him.
The right which arises from and is determined by the power
of the society over the individual is called government or
dominion (imperiuni), and is vested in the person or persons,
be they many, few, or one, who are appointed to the supreme
charge of public affairs.

The body of men subject to one government is a State.1
Its members are called citizens in respect of their franchises
and privileges, subjects in respect of their duties. No citizen
can be free to do whatever he pleases ; for if he were, he
would be above the State. Neither can the citizens be free
to interpret the laws of the State as they please ; for this
would make every man judge in his own cause, and virtually
independent of the State. It is for the State to determine
what is just and unjust, and for the citizen to obey the law ;
the will of the State must be the will of every citizen. If it
be said that it is against reason thus to give up one's own
judgment, the answer is that reason exhorts to peace and
a secure life, which cannot be had except in a well-ordered
State. The advantage of living under settled laws is far
greater than any hardship which we may feel in a particular
case from having to obey a law which we think unreasonable.
This leaves it quite open to citizens to suggest amendments
in existing laws, and endeavour by all peaceable means to
procure them ; which is expressly mentioned in the ' Tracta-
tus Theologico-Politicus ' as not only allowable but com
mendable.

Next the limits to the power of the State are considered.
As the free or reasonable man is the strongest among men,
so that State is strongest whose institutions are most accord
ing to reason. For the strength of the State depends on the
union of the citizens ; and union cannot be unless the laws of

1 Cap. 3.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 329

the State are directed to the general good. Again, the sub
jection of the citizen to the State consists either in fear of the
power of the State or in love of civil society and order.
Therefore the State has no jurisdiction over things to which
men cannot be induced by reward or compelled by punish
ment. No man can abandon, for example, his own power of
judgment. Nobody can be compelled to believe that the
whole is not greater than its part ; that God does not exist ;
that a finite body before his eyes is infinite, and the like.
Further, there are matters so repugnant to human nature in
other ways that no power can compel obedience in them ; as,
to produce evidence against oneself, to kill one's parents, not
to attempt saving one's life, and the like. ' If we say not
withstanding that the commonwealth hath right or power to
command such things, we can no otherwise conceive this than
as one might say that a man has a right to be mad. For
what else than madness would be a rule of law to which no
man can be bound ? ' In applying this test, however, we
must consider the ordinary temper of men. There may
always be some perverse or insane persons inaccessible to the
motives upon which most men in most circumstances obey
the law. But this does not prevent the law from being in
general efficacious. As for the particular individual who sets
himself against the State, as one having nothing to hope or
fear from it, Spinoza says (in this point agreeing with Hobbes)
that he may be considered as an enemy. Again, the power
of the State is limited by public opinion ; ' such matters are
not within the right of the State as excite a general opposi
tion.' For if a government issues commands which provoke
many citizens to resistance, it thereby deprives itself at once
of a certain measure of its power.

As for the rights of independent States against one
another, they are the same as thgse of individuals in the
imaginary state of nature. Peace between States corresponds
to society between individuals in so far that it rests upon con-

330 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

sent. The obligation of treaties lasts as long as the reasons
for which they were made, and no longer : a proposition
which may be unacceptable to some theorists, but which has
been abundantly verified in the history of Europe, and not
less since Spinoza's time than before it. Indeed it seems
impossible, on any political or ethical principles whatever, to
lay it down as an absolute proposition that the obligation of
treaties is perpetual. Whence can governments derive the
right of binding their subjects and successors for all time by
improvident undertakings ?

It follows from the view already given of the functions of
a commonwealth that the sovereign authority alone has the
direction of public affairs, and that for any one to meddle
with them unauthorized is a usurpation of government.1 If
it be asked whether the sovereign power in a commonwealth
is bound by law, and capable of doing wrong, the answer is
that civilly it is not so, but naturally it is. ' For if a common
wealth were bound by no law or rule, without which it would
not be a commonwealth, then we should have to regard a
commonwealth not as a thing existing in nature but as a
chimsera. Thus a commonwealth does wrong when by action
or sufferance it brings in causes of its own destruction.'
Power is always limited by the capacities of the thing acted
upon as well as the faculties of the agent. * If I say, for
instance, that I may of right do as I will with this table, I
suppose not thereby that I have a right to make the table eat
grass.' So the commonwealth cannot compel its citizens,
being men, to a kind or extent of submission contrary to
human nature. 'Therefore that the commonwealth may
maintain its right, it is bound to maintain the motives of fear
and respect ; otherwise it ceases to be a commonwealth.'
Nevertheless fundamental changes can be regularly effected
only by the sovereign authority itself. Revolutions may in

' Cap. 4.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 331

extreme cases be necessary, but they are extra-legal and in
the nature of acts of war.

Spinoza then considers what is the best condition or ideal,
as we should now say, of a government,1 without regard to its
particular form. This is a question of fact, not of right ; it is
one thing to govern by law, another to govern well. The
object of a commonwealth is peace and protection ; the
excellence of a commonwealth consists therefore in men's
living in amity and observing the law. For since men are by
nature much the same everywhere, habitual discord and law-
breaking are more the fault of institutions than of the particu
lar offenders. And the peace here meant is a cheerful and
rational acquiescence in the law, not a submission compelled
by force.

' A commonwealth whose subjects rise not in arms because they
are overcome by terror is rather to be spoken of as being without
war than as enjoying peace. For peace is not mere absence of war,
but an excellence proceeding from highmindedness ; since obedience-
is the constant will to perform that which by the common ordinance
of the State ought to be done. Moreover a commonwealth whose
peace depends on the dulness of its subjects, and on their being
driven like cattle, to learn nothing but slavery, is more fitly called a
wilderness than a commonwealth.2 When therefore we say that the
government is best under which men lead a peaceable life, I mean
that life of man which consisteth not only in the circulation of the
blood and other properties common to all animals, but whose chief
part is reason and the true life and excellence of the mind.'

In the same spirit he says again in the following chapter :

' If slavery, rudeness, and desolation are to be called peace, then
is peace the most wretched state of mankind. Truly there are more
and sharper disputes between parents and children than between
masters and slaves ; and yet it were no good housekeeping to make
the father into a master, and hold the children for slaves. It makes
for slavery, not for peace, to confer unlimited power on one man.'

1 Cap. 5, De optimo imperil statu.

2 « Rectius solitudo quam civitas dici potest : ' with obvious allusion to the well-
known ' solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.'

332 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Reference is made to Machiavelli in terms of great re
spect, and Spinoza conjectures that his real purpose in elabo
rately showing ' what means a prince who has no other motive
than the lust of power should use to strengthen his govern
ment ' may have been to point out the futility of removing a
despot when the causes are left untouched which impel the
ruler, whoever he may be, to reign despotically ; and perhaps
also to warn free communities against putting themselves in
the power of any one man. The true intention of Machia-
velli's treatise has been a standing puzzle to modern critics,
and Spinoza's guess is perhaps as good as any other.

Before we leave the general part of the treatise, we may
observe that if there be anything illiberal or tending to an
apology for despotism in Spinoza's marked dislike to violent
changes in affairs of State, the fault is shared by him with one
of the most thoughtful of English Liberal statesmen of recent
times. At the end of his ' Dialogue on the best form of govern
ment' Sir George Cornewall Lewis puts the following sentiment
in the mouth of Crito, an impartial bystander whose opinions
may fairly be taken as corresponding with those of the author
himself.

' Looking back upon the course of revolutionary movements and
upon the character of their consequences, the practical conclusion
which I draw is that it is the part of wisdom and prudence to
acquiesce in any form of government which is tolerably well adminis
tered and affords tolerable security to person and property.'

And we may add that, as matter of fact, the most success
ful revolutions have been either re-assertions of ancient rights
(as in England in 1688), or not merely domestic revolutions,
but risings against a dominion which was actually or virtually
foreign ; as in the struggle for the independence of the Nether
lands, and the liberation of Italy in 1860. Cases of this kind
are not considered by Spinoza, and, though not uncommon in
history, scarcely belong to the theory of municipal politics.

In the remainder of the ' Tractatus Politicus,' as far as it

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE.

333

goes,1 the ideal institutions appropriate for the different forms
of government are sketched out and justified. It is not worth
while to follow Spinoza minutely through this part of his
work ; we may be content with fixing our attention on a few
salient points. Under the head of Monarchy it is repeated
with some emphasis (and it would seem with implied criticism of
Hobbes) that no one man can really be sovereign. A monarch
must in practice be guided by counsellors, and thus a nomin
ally absolute monarchy is a covert and therefore bad form of
aristocracy. Accordingly Spinoza's ideal monarchy is limited
in various ways. There is a great council roughly corres
ponding to the Parliament of a modern constitutional system :
it is however not elective, but appointed by the Crown, sub
ject to fixed conditions as to age and otherwise. The Crown
must take the advice of this assembly, but is free to act upon
any opinion supported by a certain number of votes. A
smaller standing Council is to take charge of executive busi
ness and the routine of administration. The army is to con
sist only of citizens, and to receive pay only in time of war ;
and military commands are to be annual. Although this is
to modern eyes one of the most unpractical points in Spinoza's
scheme, it probably did not seem so at the time. Not only
then, but throughout the eighteenth century, a standing army
was the bugbear of constitutional theorists : and to this day
the forms of the English constitution treat it as a temporary
necessity rather than a constant part of the appliances of an
independent State. As to ecclesiastical affairs, no particular
religion is to be established by law, but the king may have a
private chapel.

Next comes the ideal aristocratic constitution, which is
not unlike the monarchical in its general features ; the pre
cautions and checks being however more elaborate. Aristo
cracy is defined as the government in which the sovereign
power belongs to a select number of the citizens who them-

1 Capp. 6-1 1 : cap, II is unfinished.

334 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

selves fix the terms of admission to the governing body. The
number may be either small or large : indeed according to
Spinoza's definitions the governing body might bear a larger
proportion to the whole adult population in some aristocracies
than in some democracies. There must be an established
religion, for the sake of unity among the governing body, but
of the simplest possible kind as to doctrine. Others are to
be tolerated, but may not compete with the established one
in public display. A conjecture is made as to the historical
origin of aristocracies (c. 8, § 12) which comes remarkably
near what is now known or presumed to be the truth from the
results of later researches. We have originally a homogeneous
community of free men founding, let us suppose, a new city.
As between themselves they are equal, and willingly recognize
their equality. But strangers will gather round the original
stock, attracted by various motives : and to these strangers
equal rights will not be allowed, nor indeed will they seek
them in the first instance. In course of time the new comers
increase, and become assimilated to the original stock of the
founders in everything but civil status and rights : till at last
the difference between them appears conventional, and the
community of free men with its outskirt of dependents has
become a people governed by a favoured class. A few words
are given by Spinoza to the subject of public instruction ;
with a promise, unhappily not fulfilled, of resuming it in a
future chapter. He expresses a decided opinion against
official endowments, holding that State universities ' are estab
lished not for the cultivation but for the repression of under
standing ' and that every citizen should be free to teach in
public at his own charges and his own risk.

The polity for which an aristocratic government is best
adapted is that which consists of several confederated cities of
approximately equal power (c. 9) ; and further rules are given
for this special case. One of them, namely, that the perma
nent seat of the federal government must not be in any one

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE.

335

of the united commonwealths, is in effect identical with the
precaution observed by the founders of the United States in
providing a seat of government exempt from the jurisdiction
of any particular State, and subject to the exclusive authority
of Congress.

The general aim of all institutions, as well those expressly
recommended as others * which may be devised in each several
government agreeably to the nature of the country and the
temper of the inhabitants,' should be to lead men to obedience
rather than compel them.

' A government which aims at nothing else than to guide men by
fear will be rather free from defects than possessed of merit. Men
are to be so guided as that they may deem themselves not to be
guided, but to live after their own mind and of their own free
resolve ; and that they be kept to allegiance by love of freedom, care
for increasing their substance, and the hope of attaining honourable
places in the government. But for statues, triumphs and other such
whets to valour, they be tokens rather of slavery than of freedom.
Rewards are ordained for the valour of servants, not of free men.
I do confess that by spurs of this kind men are extremely quickened ;
but such things, which at first are awarded to notable men, yet
afterwards, as envy increaseth, are given to worthless fellows that are
puffed up with wealth, whereby all honest people are in great indig
nation. Likewise those who can make a show of their ancestors'
triumphs and statues think themselves to be wronged if they have
not precedence over others. And lastly, to say no more, 'tis certain
that equality (which once being cast off, the liberty of a society must
needs perish) can by no means be preserved when especial honours
are awarded as of common right to any one man of illustrious
excellence.'

Passages like this are interesting as showing how very
modern a good deal of our political experience is. Spinoza
does not seem to contemplate the possibility of a social aris
tocracy being combined with a system of equality before the
law, and coinciding only in part with political eminence : nor
does it occur to him that evils which now appear to us obvious
enough arc likely to result from concentrating human ambi-

336 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

tion and vanity on the one object of official power and dis
tinction.

Having explained his federal aristocracy, Spinoza declares
with some confidence that a State framed on this model
would be as stable as it is possible for a government to be,
and could be dissolved only by some overwhelming external
violence. He then passes on to democracy (c. 11). The de
finition of democracy is peculiar; the criterion of a democratic
government, as understood by Spinoza, being a franchise
fixed by law. By franchise we do not mean a representative
franchise in the modern sense (for of representative govern
ment Spinoza seems to have no notion) but simply the right
to take part, in some way or other, in the government of the
country, which however would include the voting power of
modern constitutions. Thus there may be a qualification by
age, by primogeniture, or by payment of taxes to a certain
amount, and it matters not whether the actual governing body
thus constituted be large or small in proportion to the whole
number of inhabitants. Even though the qualified citizens be
fewer than the sovereign council might be in an aristocratic
commonwealth of the same size, the government is still to be
classed as democratic, ' because the citizens appointed to rule
the commonwealth are not thereto chosen by a sovereign
council as the fittest, but are appointed merely by the law.'
This definition includes, it is obvious, the most widely different
political systems. To begin with, every form of representative
government *& a democracy in Spinoza's sense ; the French
monarchy under Louis Philippe, with its restricted pays legal,
no less than England since the Reform Act of 1867, or the
French Republic since 1871 with universal suffrage. But
Spinoza announces it as his intention to treat only of one
form of democracy, that namely ' in which all men indiffer
ently who owe undivided allegiance to the State, are in other
respects of legal capacity, and are of good conversation, are
entitled to vote in the sovereign assembly and to undertake

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 337

the offices of government.' This is intended to exclude, as
Spinoza explains, aliens, women, infants, serfs, and criminals.
On the point of excluding women from political power he
gives reasons in a separate paragraph, the last of the unfinished
chapter. He puts it simply on the ground that men are the
stronger ; not merely with their physical strength as indi
viduals, but intellectually and in social combination.

'If women were by nature the equals of men, and equally
endowed with firmness of mind and intellect, wherein chiefly consists
human power, and consequently right, then surely among so many
and various nations there should be found some where both sexes
ruled equally, and others where men were ruled by women and so
brought up as to be inferior to them in intellect.'

(This anticipates the topic much insisted on by some re
cent advocates, that the general inferiority of women to men
is entirely the result of education.)

' And seeing this hath nowhere come to pass, we may clearly
affirm that women have not by nature an equal right with men, but
must needs give place to them ; and hence that it is not possible the
two sexes should bear rule equally, much less that men should be
ruled by women.'

Further, a little consideration of human passions and
jealousies will show that * equal rule of men and women can
not have place without great prejudice to peace.' It is open to
supporters of female suffrage either to disregard Spinoza's ob
jections as frivolous, and dismiss him, like other opponents, as
a narrow-minded person, or to distinguish him on the ground
that he was considering the question, not of a vote for repre
sentatives, but of a direct and active participation in public
affairs. It is more to our present purpose to remark that the
objections, whatever may be thought of their merits, are not
at all of the kind we should expect from a man answering to
the popular notion of Spinoza, They are far from being ap
propriate to a man who sits in a garret and spins metaphysical
cobwebs. Indeed, with the exception of a reference to the

338 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

fable of the Amazons in the pedantic manner of the time
(which I have thought it needless to translate), they are such
as might well be used at this day in the House of Commons.
Here the treatise comes to an untimely end. It is not
probable that Spinoza's account of an ideal democratic State
would have contributed much to the science of politics, but
we may still regret not having it. Some light might have
been thrown on the question, at present obscure, what was the
extent of Spinoza's familiarity with the public affairs of his
own country. In dealing with a subject-matter more apt to
be illustrated by domestic examples and, it would seem, more
after his own heart than the discussion of monarchical and
aristocratical institutions, he would have had a better occasion
of showing his knowledge and opinions on matters of present
interest. That he did not neglect the political writings of the
time we know from a reference in the discussion of aristocracy
(c. 8, §31) to an author mentioned by Spinoza as ' prudentissi-
musBelgaV.H.' This V.H.is Pieter de la Court1 ( 1618-1685),
an eminent publicist who wrote under the initials D.C. (De la
Court) V.H. (Van den Hove, the Dutch equivalent). He was
a friend of John de Witt, and opposed to the party of the
Stadtholders. The terms in which Spinoza, who is not lavish
of praise, refers to De la Court are not without significance as
to his own political sympathies. If, as divers excellent persons
have maintained, Spinozism is in politics a doctrine of abso
lutism, we are driven to conclude that Spinoza did not under
stand his own philosophy, and in fact that he was the first anti-
Spinozist. But the reader will now be in a position to judge
this question even without referring to Spinoza's text. It
sufficiently appears, I venture to think, not only that Spinoza
was a firm and consistent supporter of political liberty, but
that he was disposed to go much farther in letting individual
thought, habits, and enterprise alone than the majority of

1 I owe this identification (so far as I know hitherto unpublished) to Dr,
Campbell.

THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 339

statesmen of his own time. His condemnation of sumptuary
laws must have appeared rash, his mistrust of State endow
ments pedantic if not suspicious, and his notions of religious
toleration wildly extravagant. Even his contention that in
a monarchical State the monarch should be subject to the
law was likely to be received with doubtful favour in some
quarters. For various reasons his work has been eclipsed by
that of Hobbes ; and in the actual history of the theory of
politics it can hold orJy a rank subordinate to the * Leviathan.'
But the judgment of history is not always the judgment of
philosophy. Hobbes' power of reasoning and mastery of
English command and deserve an admiration which it would
be difficult to exaggerate. But Spinoza's doctrine rests on a
wider and more generous view of human life ; it is less en
cumbered with fictions ; it aims at a higher mark. It is the
work, not of a powerful mind which has espoused the cause
of a party and makes philosophy a partisan, but of a philo
sopher who is proud of being a free citizen.

340 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER XL

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY.

One knocked at the Beloved's door ; and a voice asked from within, ' Who is
there?' and he answered, 'It is I.' Then the voice said, 'This house will not
hold me and thee.' And the door was not opened. Then went the Lover into
the desert, and fasted and prayed in solitude. And after a year he returned and
knocked again at the door. And again the voice asked, ' Who is there ? ' and he
said, ' It is Thyself ! ' and the door was opened to him.

E. FITZGERALD, from JELALADDIN.

Rends-toi compte de Dieu. Comprendre, c'est aimer.— VICTOR HUGO : Les
Contemplations, livre 3me, no. 8.

IN various parts of Spinoza's work there are incidental dis
cussions of prevailing theological conceptions, not so much by
way of direct attack as for the purpose of explaining Spinoza's
own different point of view. We have hitherto not noticed
these passages. Their interest is perhaps more historical than
philosophical, and moreover the consideration of Spinoza's
metaphysical theory gave us quits enough to do without at
tending at the time to his controversial digressions. But
Spinoza's bearing towards the current theology of his time is
an element of some importance in our knowledge of the man,
and his position as regards religion in a wider sense excites
questions which, even if it be impossible to answer them to our
satisfaction, it is impossible to leave untouched. It has already
been pointed out that Spinoza nowhere professes to attack
theology in general, but only to refute the erroneous philoso
phical doctrines attached to theology by particular Churches
and theologians. He leaves no room, however, for a technical
system of theology standing side by side with philosophy,

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 341

whether as claiming to control it or merely to belong to a
distinct and independent sphere of thought. Natural religion
, is identical with philosophy, and the power of revealed religion
consists not in adding new philosophical truth, or systematic
truth of any kind, to that which reason can discover, but in
showing men a way of salvation independent of philosophy.
So far as theology is distinct from philosophy it is not a body
of doctrine but a rule of life. Obedience is within every
man's power, but not wisdom. This is the burden of the
' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' and the severance of faith
from philosophy there spoken of does not mean that what is
disbelieved as matter of reason may be believed as matter of
faith, but that when the distinct objects of the two are rightly
understood no collision is possible. The whole scope of
revelation is practical, and the claims of revealed religion to
be accepted by mankind rest not on demonstrative but on
moral certainty. We further collect that, apart from specu
lative questions as to the actual truth of particular doctrines,
it was in Spinoza's view a practical necessity that the great
majority of mankind should have a dogmatic religion of some
sort, but that he also thought it possible and desirable that
the fundamental dogmas should be very few and simple.1
Similar assumptions are made in the treatise on Politics, as
we saw in the last chapter.

Now we cannot expect to learn the whole mind of Spinoza
from the writings in which these statements occur. In the
* Tractatus Politicus ' he professes to take men as he finds
them ; in the 'Theologico-Politicus ' he is to a great extent
conducting a hypothetical argument on premisses which he
is content to assume by way of concession. He is addressing
himself as a citizen to citizens and statesmen, not as a philo
sopher to philosophers. On the other hand we cannot assume
that the position taken by him for this purpose is to be set
aside as merely occasional and hypothetical. The philoso-

1 7ract. Theol.-Pol. cc. 13-15.

342 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

phical criticism of the ' Ethics ' does not justify us in disre
garding it : for, as Spinoza himself would have been the first
to point out, the subject-matter of the two arguments is not
the same. The ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' affirms that
a plain man who does not enter upon philosophy may without
harm, or even with profit, believe whatever he finds most
edifying, provided that he believes it sincerely and allows the
like freedom to others. But it is clear enough that the author_
himself does not accept popular theology or the popular
interpretation of Scripture ; and the discussion of current
theological philosophy in the ' Ethics ' is only the develop
ment of what is already suggested in the earlier work. Then
we have a curious correspondence with Oldenburg on special
points, belonging to the last year or two of Spinoza's life.
Here, again, one cannot tell exactly how much allowance is
to be made for Spinoza's desire to accommodate his expres
sions of unwelcome opinions to his friend's habits of thought
and language.

There are two distinct things to be considered. The
general discussion of propositions in theology, or in mixed
theology and metaphysics, has a speculative value indepen
dent of the conclusions we may form about Spinoza's exact
personal relations to historical theology. But the place
which religion and the religious sentiment held in Spinoza's
individual life cannot be estimated without some endeavour
to ascertain those relations, however difficult it may be. It
will be best to take first that branch of the subject where we
are on firmer ground, and the matter is of wider interest.
We turn back, then, to the First Part of the ' Ethics.'

Spinoza maintains, as we have seen, the doctrine of a
universal necessity which is identical with freedom when we
s consider the universe as a whole. And he says (Pr. 17) that
' God acts merely by the laws of his own nature and without
constraint ; ' and in this sense God alone can rightly be called
a free cause, In other words, the order of the universe as a

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 343

whole is self-contained and self-determined. Discussion
follows in a Scholium.

' Others hold that God is a free cause, forasmuch as (in their
opinion) he can bring it to pass that the things which, as we have
said, follow from his nature or are in his power, do not happen or
be not produced by him. But this is as if they should say that God
could make it not to follow from the nature of a triangle that its
three angles should be equal to two right angles ; or that from a
given cause its effect should not follow, which is absurd. Also I
shall prove below, without the help of this proposition, that neither
understanding nor will belong to the nature of God. I know there
are many who think they can prove that free-will and the height of
understanding belong to the nature of God ; since, as they say, they
know no greater perfection which they can attribute to God than
that which is the highest perfection in ourselves. Again, though
they conceive God as having in act the perfection of understanding, yet
they believe not that he can make all those things 10 exist which
he doth in act understand ; for thus they conceive the power of God
would be taken away. If, they say, he had created all things that
were in his understanding, then he could have created nothing more,
which they hold repugnant to God's omnipotence. And so they have
chosen to describe God as every way indifferent, and creating no
thing else but what by a supposed absolute will he hath determined to
create.'

But we have shown, Spinoza continues, that all things
follow by the same necessity from the infinite nature or power
of God ; so that the omnipotence of God is always and eter
nally in act : whereas the other opinion really denies his
omnipotence, for it is assumed that God cannot or must not
create everything he has conceived, lest he should ' exhaust
his omnipotence and make himself imperfect'

' Therefore in order to affirm God's perfection these men
are driven to affirm at the same time that he cannot bring
about everything to which his power extendeth ; than which
I see not what can be devised more absurd, or more repug
nant to the omnipotence of God/ As for understanding and
will in God, they must be wholly different from ours, and
resemble them only in name. Human understanding is con-

344 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

ditioned by the things understood ; the divine understanding
is the cause and origin of them. It is also the cause of
human understanding, and for that very reason must be
different from it, as Spinoza proves by a curious piece of
formal argument. But this is not all. Farther on he points
out that both understanding and will are in every case parti
cular determined modes of thought, having particular finite
causes. They belong to natura natnrata, not to natura natu-
rans. And accordingly ' will and understanding are related
to the nature of God in the same way as motion and rest J
and generally all things in nature, which must be determined
by God to exist and act in a particular manner. For will,
like all other things, needs a cause to determine it to exist
and act. And though any particular act of will or under- .
standing hath infinite consequences, yet God cannot therefore
any more be said to act out of freedom of will than because
of the consequences of motion and rest (which be likewise
infinite) he can be said to act out of freedom of motion and
rest. Wherefore will belongeth not to the nature of God
more than other things in nature, but standeth with respect
to it no otherwise than motion and rest and all other things,
which we have shown to follow from the necessity of God's
nature, and thereby to be determined to exist and act in a
particular manner' (Pr. 32, Coroll. 2).

The next proposition affirms that 'things could not have
been produced by God in any other manner or order than
they have been produced/ And it is maintained (Schol. 2)
that this doctrine, so far from detracting from the perfection
of God, as many persons may hastily suppose, is required by
it. Assume with the objectors that will belongs to the
nature of God : it will be admitted that all things depend on
his will for being what they are, and that his decrees are
eternal ; for his mind cannot be supposed variable. ( But
since in eternity there is not any when, or before, or after, it

1 As to Spinoza's theory about 'motus et quies,' see pp. 108-115 above.

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 345

follows merely from the perfection of God that God never
can or could decree otherwise than he doth ; or that God was
not before his decrees, nor can be without them.' To say
that God might have made things otherwise than he did is to
say that his will and understanding might have been other
wise than they are. But this leads to inadmissible conse
quences. It is agreed by all philosophers (Spinoza possibly
is thinking of the Schoolmen as well of the Jewish Aristote
lians) that the divine understanding is never inpotmtia\w\.
always in actn. But since the will and understanding of God
are indistinguishable from God himself, as is likewise ad
mitted, it follows that if God's will and understanding had
not been what they are, he must have been other than he is.
That is, in order to make things otherwise than they are God
himself must have been other than he is. But some will say
that perfection itself depends on the will of God, and that
what is now perfection might have been imperfection if he
had thought fit so to make it. But this would amount to the
assertion 4 that God, who must needs understand that which
he wills, can by his will bring it to pass that he shall under
stand things otherwise than he doth understand them.
Which (as above shown) is an exceeding absurdity.' 1 Then
follows a very characteristic remark.

(l confess this opinion, which doth subject all things to an
alleged indifferent will of God and holdeth everything to depend on
his pleasure, is less wide of the truth than the opinion of those who
hold that all God's actions have regard to a rule of good (Deum
omnia sub ratione boni agere). For such men seem to affirm some
what outside God, and not dependent on him, which God keeps
before him as a pattern in his works, or at which he aims as at a
fixed mark. This plainly is naught else than to make God subject to
fate ; than which nothing more absurd can be propounded of God,
whom we have shown to be the first and singular free cause of all
things, both as to their essence and as to their existence/

1 With the whole passage compare and contrast St. Thomas Aquinas, Sttmma
Theologite Part i, Quaest. 19, artt. 2-5,

346 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Spinoza here repudiates two popular conceptions of the
Deity in one breath ; one which makes him an absolute ruler
whose only law is his own will, and another which regards
him as constantly fulfilling a moral law conceived as in some
way independent of him. In the one view he is a despotic
monarch, in the other a governor bound by an unchangeable
constitution. The world is his plaything, or an inscrutable
something is his master. In the latter case, the only evidence
we have of the ultimate sovereignty of the moral law is in
. the human conscience : and hence it would seem that con
science must be the judge of God as well as of man. And
this may really be the view obscurely held by a large number
of the right-minded persons who accept theology in its ordi
nary forms, even those who would verbally assert the other
opinion, namely, that the moral law is what it is because God
has chosen to make it so. For though many say that moral
commandments are binding because they express the will of
God, few of those who say so would not also say that the will
of God is always good ; where the meaning of good might
indeed be vague, but at any rate would be something more
than the name of that which God wills.

A more philosophical variety of this opinion is to go so
far with Spinoza as to say that the order of nature, and the
moral law as part thereof, belongs to the nature of God itself ;
and then to add that the moral law appertains in some
peculiar and eminent way to the nature of God, so as to
make him the proper object of a feeling similar in kind to
that which we entertain for good men, but infinitely magnified
in degree. This position, or something like it, is adopted by
divers modern theologians. It is free from the metaphysical
absurdity pointed out by Spinoza in the cruder form of moral
theology, but raises difficulties of another kind. The objects
of morality being particular and relative to man, there appears
to be no convenient mean between refraining from the
application of moral ideas to the order of nature as a whole,

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 347

and asserting that the universe exists for the sake of man.
This last position was formerly thought acceptable or even
obvious, but for several reasons there is a growing disinclina
tion to defend it. Again, it is not impossible to deny in terms
that morality is relative to human society. But those who
do this must be prepared to show us the universal morality
of which human morality is only a particular case, or at least
to bring forward some probable evidence of it. They should
be able to explain, for instance, in what sense morality existed
in the world before any human society was formed. So far,
however, from feeling any difficulty on this score, they would
in general be the first to proclaim the dignity of man as the
only moral creature, and to exalt him above all other finite
beings precisely on that ground. On this point also it is
hard to be sure whether people really accept everything they
piofess. The universality of the moral law may be asserted in
words, while the real meaning is only that there are per
manent elements in human nature and society to which there
correspond permanent moral relations, or that the broad
groundwork of morality could not be different from what it is
unless human nature were also different. But this is a pro
position which at the present day nobody will dispute, least
of all anyone who has apprehended the lessons of Spinoza's
< Ethics.' In the same way the_ principles of right and wrong
may be called eternal and immutable in a sense to which no
serious exception can be taken, namely, that these principles
are necessary consequences of the constitution of man, which
itself is part of the universal order of nature, and that they
are as permanent as mankind itself. It is possible that some
of those who speak as if they thought the scientific discussion
of ethical theories dangerous to morality may imagine that
these last-mentioned propositions are attacked, and may wish
only to defend them when they put forward statements of
apparently wider scope. Certainly it is not an uncommon
mistake to fancy that everyone who does not accept some

348 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

transcendental theory of ethics must regard morality as
casual and conventional, and variable in every new set of cir
cumstances : whereas if it were possible to regard morality as
casual and conventional, it would be by means of the assump
tion that moral law is nothing but the commandment of a
being who gives no reason for his commands, but will crush
us if we disobey.

But we cannot here attempt to pursue this topic farther,
and indeed the task might prove endless. There are no
harder illusions to get rid of than anthropomorphic ones (or
perhaps it would be better to say anthropocentric) ; and there
is no reason to suppose that the possible and more or less
plausible forms of such illusion are either exhausted or
exhaustible. As to the modern transcendental theories of
superhuman morality which claim to be founded on a strictly
philosophical method, it may be a sufficient excuse for saying
nothing of them that they have no point of contact with
Spinoza. But one may observe that a transcendental theory
is by its very nature a kind of deus ex machina. Disproof
may be impossible ; in fact, I should be disposed to say
that if any transcendental theory is capable of actual dis
proof, it can only be the result of bad workmanship. But
the burden of proof lies on the transcendentalist to show that
his deus ex machina is necessary ; at least that is the opinion
of people who have not the transcendental faculty.

We have now seen that according to Spinoza the actions
of God are not directed by a will that can even be supposed
mutable, by anything that can be called choice, or towards a
moral end. But he further says that they are not directed
towards ends at all. In more technical words, he wholly
rejects Final Causes. To most English minds it may possibly
seem that the exclusion of deliberation and choice from the
order of the universe would of itself imply the exclusion of
final causes. But recent speculation in Germany has shown
that it does not : and Spinoza's appendix to the First Part of

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 349

the ' Ethics * is not only a vigorous piece of controversial ex
position which as a work of art one would be sorry to lose, but
it is by no means philosophically superfluous. His professed
object is to expose the prejudices which lie at the root of most
confused thinking about the order of nature. ' All the preju
dices,' he says, ' which I here mean to lay bare depend on this
point only ; to wit, that men commonly suppose all things in
nature to act as themselves do for a purpose ; insomuch that
they make sure that God himself orders all things for some
fixed end (for they say that God made all things for man's
sake, and man to worship him).' The origin and the ground
lessness of this belief are accordingly to be explained. Men
think themselves_jree^ and actjwith a view to somedesired
end. Thus they come to regard the purpose of an action as
a necessary and sufficient explanation of the action. If in a
particular case they can get no positive inToimation of the
purpose, they form a conjecture from the analogy of the
motives by which they have themselves on other occasions
been ^determined to actions of the same kind. Then, find
ing so many things in nature useful for man's life, they
regard all things as instruments for man's use ; and know
ing that they found and did not make these conveniences,
they infer that some ruler of the world, having freedom like
that of human agents, must have made them of set purpose
for the benefit of mankind. Proceeding to guess at this!
ruler's motives from the analogy of their own, they form the;
opinion that the Gods ordered thejworld for man's use that
so they might acquire men's gratitude and have honour and
worship of them.

'And so this prejudice hath grown to a superstition
and struck root deep in their minds ; which was a reason
moving every one to extreme diligence in considering and
explaining the final^ causes of all thmgs. But whereas they
sought to show that naturS"o!otri^riot anything in vain (that
is, without regard for the use of mankind) they have shown

350 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

nothing, as it seems, but that nature and the Gods, if this
were so, should be as distraught as themselves. Mark, I pray
you, to what a pass the matter comes at last. Among so
many conveniences of nature they must needs find not a few
things contrary, as storms, earthquakes, plagues and the like,
and these they affirmed to happen for that the Gods were
angered for wrongs done them by men, or faults in performing
their rites ; and though experience did every day protest,
showing by numberless examples that good and ill turns be
fall the obedient and the disobedient indifferently, nevertheless
they ceased not from their confirmed prejudice.' For it was
easier to assume that mischievous things had unknown uses
than to reconstruct their habits of thought : and so the
further assumption was made that the counsels of the Gods
were beyond human understanding : ' which cause would
have alone sufficed to hide the truth for ever from mankind,
had not the mathematics, which are concerned not with
designed ends, but only with the nature and properties of
figures, made manifest to them another pattern of truth.'

Spinoza then argues, in his usual concise manner, that the
doctrine of final causes is in itself untenable : among other
reasons, it is mconsistent with the perfection of God : 'for if
God acts for a designed end, it must needs be that he desireth
something which he hath not.' And it is observed that a
common way of defending final causes is by a method other
wise unknown of ' reduction, not to impossibility but to
ignorance.' For example, a tile falls from a roof on a man's
head and kills him. It shall be proved by this method that
it fell on purpose to kill him : for if that had not been God's
design, how could all the conditions for the event concur then
and there ? You may answer, it happened because the wind
blew and the man was passing that way. They will stand to
it with another question : why did the wind blow, and why
was the man going by just then ? If you assign fresh reasons,
they will again ask new questions, as they always can, since

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 351

of questioning there is no end : ' and so they will never cease
asking for the causes of causes, until you take flight to that
sanctuary of ignorance which they call the will of God.' •
And thus it happens that to seek out the causes of what seems
wonderful, and to aim at understanding the operations of
nature instead of staring in dull amazement, is to incur the
suspicion of heresy. For those who are commonly esteemed
the sole expounders of divine truth well know that the
destruction of ignorance is the destruction of fear, on which
their power is built.

It is then _explaine.d how current notions of beauty,
ugliness, and the like, are relative to men's organs and dis
positions. This part of the appendix is a rapid sketch in
anticipation of what is given at large in the following books
of the ' Ethics,' and we therefore need not dwell upon it :
some expressions, however, are remarkable for their affinity
to recent psychological theories independently worked out
from the side of physical science. ' If the motion impressed
on the optic nerves by the objects that the eyes perceive be
such as promotes health, the objects which cause it are named
beautiful ; those which excite the opposite kind of motion
are called ugly.' Hence appears the answer to the common
difficulties touching the perfection of the world. If, it is
asked, everything is the result of God's perfection, whence
come the many imperfections of nature, corruption, ugliness, _
disorder, evil, sin ? But this is to confuse the nature of things
with human imaginations of them.

« The perfection of things is to be reckoned only from their own ,
^nature and power ; and things are not therein more or less perfect
that they delight or offend the sense of men, or that they are con
venient for the nature of man or repugnant thereto. If any ask, why
God hath not so created all men that they should be governed only
by reason ? I give them no answer but this : Because he lacked not
matter for creating all things, even from the highest degree of per
fection unto the lowest. Or more exactly thus : Because the laws
of his own nature were so vast as to suffice for producing all things

352 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY,

which can be conceived by an infinite understanding' (ab aliquo
infinite intellects, : a hypothetical infinite mind which must be dis
tinguished from the infinite intellect which we have" met with as one
of the things ' immediately produced by God.' )

From the universal point of view perfection is fulness of
/iCbeing, and has rTofhingjtojdo witrTEFe perfection that is rela-
! five to man's use or convenience.

So far Spinoza's general criticism of theological ideas. It
enables us to say with reasonable certainty, up to a certain
point, what the God of Spinoza is not. He is free, but not
exercising choice ; for all his works are necessary, and the
law of their necessity is the law of his own being. His acts
do not spring from design ; where there is no choice there can
be no deliberation, and a being which embraces the^ universe
is sufficient to its^i He is ffef a moi^eiRg ST&e§§Sfe of
having preferences ; for with respect to God all things are
perfect in their kind. Even understanding and will cannot
be said to belong to his nature. In short, the God of Spinoza
is not the personal God often said to be required by
innate religious sentiment of man. But if he is thus imper-
"""ional, it would be misleading, and not in accordance with
Spinoza's turn of thought, to say that he is unconscious. It
is true that understanding, as a determined mode of thought,
belongs only to determined things. Even the infinite intellect
which includes all thought and consciousness is a particular
thing. The object of these distinctions, however, is partly to
secure the equality of all the Attributes, of which we have
already spoken. It remains a cardinal point of the system
that God is a thinking being who can think infinitely in infi
nite ways (Eth. 2, Pr. 3). This does not involve, it is true,
the supposition of a consciousness analogous to human con
sciousness. Such a supposition is quite inadmissible on
Spinoza's principles ; for human consciousness is a state of a
mental organism, answering in the Attribute of thought to a
state of the human body in the Attribute of extension. And

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 353

God's consciousness could be like man's only if the material
universe were organized like a human body; which some
enthusiasts have indeed in later times been found to affirm.
It is stated however in one of the latest propositions of the
Ethics, already cited (Pt. 5, Pr. 40), that the human mind ' so far
as it understands ' is an eternal mode of thought which together
with endless other such modes ' makes up the eternal and
infinite understanding of God.' All human knowledge, then, "
is not only contained but in some manner united and as it
were incorporated in this ' infinite understanding.' The mind
of God gathers up into an eternal unity the true ideas of all
finite minds in all time. And also, since every idea or mode
of thought is said to be ' true with respect to God,' in that it
really exists and corresponds to a really existing mode of Ex
tension,1 it would seem that every finite mode of thought what
ever, whether in a conscious finite mind or not, must have its
due place somewhere in the infinite chain. All this will doubt
less appear obscure. I can only say that Spinoza has left it
so, and that it does not seem to me worth while to attempt to
force an illusory definiteness upon that which is incapable
of definition. The difficulties of Spinoza's theory of the
eternity of the mind, which of course would recur here, have
already been pointed out.

It is clear, on the whole, that the real difference between
Spinoza and the common forms of orthodox philosophy is
noJL_that he denies consciousness to God, for this he never
does ^ or that_hejienies God's consciousness to be like man's,
for this many orthodox philosophers would also deny, and
theologians of the weightiest authority have in fact denied it
as strongly as Spinoza himself. The point _of_his heterodoxy M
is_±ha.tjie will not call God j^cjujiy^lyj3r _eminently a think- j \
ing being. To say that God is a spirit is in Spinoza's view •
just as inadequate and misleading as to say that man is a
spirit. Man is a thinking being, but he is also a corporeal or

1 See p, 196, above.
A A

354 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

extended being; and thought is only one of the infinite
/Attributes of God. But here there recurs another point of
which we have already treated, namely the latent idealism
of Spinoza's metaphysical system, which may have coloured
his thought on this subject almost without his knowing it.
Perhaps he regarded the infinite variety of the universe
(including as it does in his view countless forms of existence
to us wholly unimaginable) as reflected and redoubled, and at
the same time grasped as a single whole, in the ' infinite in
tellect of God.5 But all this, again, comes perilously near to
a mere playing with words.

The discussion of Spinoza's metaphysic in its bearing on
theology is much complicated by his having no philosophical
term equivalent to the modern consciousness, and generally
not regarding things from that point of view. In one passage
of his early work, the ' Cogitata Metaphysica ' (Part 2, c. 8, § i)
he does mention the term Personality as being used by theo
logians to explain their distinction of qualities or attributes
(in the common sense) in God. He adds that the term is as
mysterious to him as the mystery it is intended to explain,
and that further light is to be hoped for only in the beatific
vision ( * quamvis constanter credamus in visione Dei bea-
tissima quae fidelibus promittitur Deum hoc suis revelatu-
rum ').

Now an appeal to revelation, either here or hereafter, for
enlightenment on a philosophical question is a thing utterly
contrary to Spinoza's later principles, as abundantly appears
from the ( Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.' And this passage
occurs in a work where Spinoza is not expressing his own
opinions, except so far as he can suggest them in a pro
fessedly Cartesian commentary without actually contradicting
Descartes. Either the passage is ironical, hinting to the dis
ciple of Descartes that his master has brought him to a theo-
logico-philosophical deadlock whence nothing but a revelation
will help him out : or (as I think more probable) it was

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 353

written by Spinoza at a very early time, when he was still
disposed to believe in mysteries. At the date of the ' Essay
of God and Man ' he seems to have thought it possible that
new Attributes might become known to man by revelation ;
for in one place (Part i, c. 7, note) he speaks of Thought
and Extension as the only Attributes as yet known to us.

It is remarkable that the theological colouring of Spinoza's
philosophy becomes fainter as we proceed in the ' Ethics,'
and in the third and fourth Parts Deus appears more and
more like a bare synonym for natura. But then, just as one
might begin to think that the verbal disguise has been com
pletely thrown off, we come upon the intellectual love of God -
in the fifth Part. After all God has not been reduced to
Nature, but Nature exalted to God. Spinoza begins and
ends with theological terms ; and yet, when we translate his
doctrines into modern language, we find a view of the world
standing wholly apart from those which have been pro
pounded or seriously influenced by theology. His earlier
writings help us to understand the seeming riddle. He
started with the intention of making theology philosophical,
but with the determination to follow reason to the uttermost.
Reason led him beyond the atmosphere of theology altogether,
but his advance was so continuous that the full extent of it
was hardly perceived by himself.

Those to whom names are important may be left to settle
as best they can by what name Spinoza's doctrine shall be
called. Most people call it Pantheism. There is no particu
lar harm in this, except that Pantheism is so vague a term as
to be applicable and applied to diametrically opposite theories,
For example, the Hindu philosophers of the orthodox Brah-
manical schools are in a general way pantheists, and are
commonly so named. But they hold that all finite existence
is an illusion, and life mere vexation and mistake, a blunder
or sorry jest of the Absolute. We need hardly repeat that
Spinoza holds nothing of the kind. So that when somebody

356 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

talked a while ago of 'Pantheism from the Vedas to
Spinoza/ he might as well have talked of the law of evidence
from Manu to the Indian Evidence Act, as far as any logical
connexion went : to say nothing of the circumstance that the
Vedas are many centuries earlier than systematic Hindu
philosophy, and the earliest parts of them are not pantheistic.
'Again, the Stoics were also pantheists : only they went to the
other extreme and held that the universe was the product of
perfect reason and in an absolute sense good. A description
which includes these opinions as well as Spinoza's cannot be
of much use for conveying exact information. And then it
is difficult to say how far Theism does or does not overlap
Pantheism. Lately Mr. Fiske of Harvard has written a very
lucid and systematic work, setting forth a view of the nature
of things identical in the main with Mr. Herbert Spencer's,
and he calls his view Cosmic Theism. Now it is certain that
Mr. Spencer's and Mr. Fiske's doctrine excludes the belief in
a so-called Personal God, and the particular forms of religious
emotion dependent on it. Whether any large number of
people will agree to use the name of Cosmic Theism for the
doctrine I do not know, and cannot pretend to care very
much. But it is evident that Spinoza must be called a
Theist by such persons, be they many or few ; since his ideas
are not less theological than Mr. Fiske's, and his language
more so. Then there is the facile and once frequent name ot
Atheism, which however polite and intelligent persons have
lately shrunk from using. This is just as well, as it is not
only an ugly name, but has no intelligible meaning. At least
the nearest approach to a definition that I can suggest is
that an atheist means anybody who disagrees with one on any
f theological question of importance ; the speaker being, of
course, the judge both of what questions are theological, and
whether they are important enough to call names about.
Probably the historical meaning is definite enough, namely, a
citizen who refuses to worship the Gods appointed "to be

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 357

iies of^hi^city. But to apply this
in England at the present day would obviously lead us into
great incivility towards classes of persons who are not only
respectable and influential, but quite orthodox as orthodoxy
has been understood ever since the Act of Toleration.1 As
for Agnosticism, we may be allowed to put off any discussion
of this last addition to the vocabulary of sects and persuasions
till some one has called Spinoza an Agnostic. In fine, we
conclude that to dwell on these matters of nomenclature is
unprofitable : and we .decline, for similar reasons, to enter on
the question, on which chapters if not volumes might be
spent, whether Spinoza's way of looking at the world and
man is to be called a religion or not. If it is fitted (with
allowances and additions according to the state of knowledge
for the time being) for the use of reasonable men in the con
duct of life, sooner or later reasonable men will find it out
and use it, under whatever name. If it is not, reasonable
men will not be persuaded to use it by the most positive and
formal proof that it satisfies at all points the best possible
definition of a religion.

We may now go on to consider Spinoza's utterances as to
the particular revelations on which the claims of Judaism and
Christianity, the only historical religions with which he was
acquainted, are commonly made to stand. It is needless to
say that the materials for a comparative study of religions
were not accessible in Spinoza's time. The religions of the
East were known only by loose and superficial report, and this
was especially the case with Buddhism, the most important of
all. Spinoza probably knew of its existence (in his letter to
Albert Burgh he specifies India as the seat of divers re
ligions) ; but of its origin, its fundamental doctrines, and the
personal character of its founder as preserved by tradition, he
can have known nothing. Indian Buddhism, indeed, remained

1 Yet the term atheist appears to include even now, in the borough of Chelsea
and at the time of a general election, a member of the Society of Friends,

358 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

a sealed book to European scholars long after his time.1 This
has to be borne in mind if we undertake to reduce Spinoza's
judgments to the measure of our own time. In the first
chapter of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' where the
nature of prophecy is discussed, the revelation of the Deca
logue occurs as a question to be specially dealt with. It is the
opinion of some Jewish authors, Spinoza says, that the words
of the commandments were not actually pronounced by God,
but the Israelites heard an inarticulate noise, while at the same
time the commandments were inwardly perceived by them.

* And this ' (he proceeds) ' I myself once thought, since I found
the words of the decalogue in Exodus different from those in
Deuteronomy; whence it seems to follow (since God spoke but
once) that the decalogue was to lay down not the very words of
God but only the meaning. However, if we are not to do violence
to Scripture, it must certainly be allowed that the Israelites heard a
real voice.'

This voice we must suppose to have been created for
that occasion. But this supposition is by no means free from
difficulty : for how could this finite and created voice give the
Israelites any rational certainty of the existence or nature of
God beyond what they had before ? And moreover the whole
narrative suggests not only that there was a real voice, but
that God himself spoke in the fashion of a man. ' Wherefore
I doubt not,' Spinoza concludes, ( that herein lies a mystery,
of which we will speak more at large afterwards.' Are we to
infer that Spinoza thought it proper on this point to follow
the example set by Ibn Ezra on other points of historical cri
ticism ? By talking of a mystery does he simply mean, as Ibn
Ezra meant beyond question, that he does not choose to ex
plain himself further ? Certainly he has brought together
precisely the kind of evidence, and suggested precisely the
kind of considerations, which a modern critic would bring for-

1 The Buddha appears in Montesquieu (doubtless through Jesuit accounts of
Chinese Buddhism) as 'Foe, legislateur des Indes.' Esprit des Lois, book 14, c.
5. Cp. note B to Bayle's article on Spinoza,

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 35g

ward to show that the whole narrative is an anthropomorphic
myth. The hypothesis he actually gives is a sort of ration
alized miracle : since God does not speak like men, he must
have specially ordained that the Israelites should hear certain
words pronounced as by a magnified human voice. It is ex
tremely difficult to believe that this really commended itself
to Spinoza. Again, it sufficiently appears from other parts of
the treatise that in Spinoza's eyes the pre-eminence of the
Jews as the chosen people was a fact to be studied and ex
plained on the ordinary principles of historical and political
reasoning. The divine election of the Hebrew nation is iden
tified, as we should now say, with natural selection. Again,
the whole and only scope of revelation, in the view set forth
by Spinoza in various parts of the treatise, is to assure men
that there is a way of salvation by obedience without specula
tive knowledge. And this obedience does not consist in fol
lowing any particular set of precepts, but in the exercise of
justice and charity. The only necessary and really catholic
faith is summed up in this : ' that there is a supreme being,
loving justice and charity, whom all men are bound to obey
that they may be saved, and to worship by showing justice
and charity to their neighbours.' (c. 14, § 24). Philosophical
questions as to the nature and attributes of God are indifferent
to faith.

' Whether he be fire, spirit, light, thought, or otherwise, is of no
account to faith ; nor yet in what manner he is the type of the right
life, for example, whether because he hath a just and merciful mind,
or because by him is the being and operation of all things, and
through him therefore we also have understanding, and through him
perceive that which is true, just, and good : to faith it is all one what
every man holds touching these things. So again it is indifferent to ^
faith whether one believe that God is everywhere essentially or
potentially ; that he governs nature freely or by the necessity of his
own nature ; that he dictates laws as a prince, or shows them as
eternal truths ; that men obey God from absolute free will, or by
necessity of the divine ordinance ; that the reward of good and
punishment of wicked men is natural or supernatural.'

360 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Thus, too, it is not the business of revelation to give
rational demonstrations but to move men to obedience. And
here is the answer to the difficulties formerly raised about the
voice from Sinai.

* Although the voice which the Israelites heard could not have
given them any philosophical or mathematical certainty of the exist
ence of God, yet it sufficed to ravish them with amazement at God's
power (such as they already knew him), and to impel them to
obedience ; which was the purpose of that display. For God's will
was not to show the Israelites the attributes of his nature as they are
in themselves (seeing he did not as then reveal any), but to break
their stubborn mind and draw it to obedience ; and so he went to
work with them not with arguments, but with the blast of trumpets,
thunder, and lightnings.'

This, it will be observed, removes only half the difficulty.
The other half is not touched either in the chapter on miracles
or elsewhere. Remembering that the ' Tractatus Theologico-
Politicus ' is a work of conciliation, we may conclude without
much hesitation that Spinoza did not himself regard the cir
cumstances of the Mosaic revelation as historical.

When in the following chapter he speaks of the necessity
and authority of revelation, he passes over the thunders of
Sinai, and only adduces in general terms the testimony of the
prophets. And the prophets he regards (herein pretty much
following Maimonides) as men gifted with a particularly strong
and vivid imagination, which became the instrument of a kind
of special insight ; the prophet's individual character, educa
tion and habits colouring all his visions and determining the
form in which they were recorded. On this point also the
question occurs whether Spinoza is giving his own opinion, or
only aims at giving the most rational theory within the limits
of certain assumptions he has imposed on himself for a special
purpose. It is almost impossible to draw the line between
these two positions in the 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,'
and I doubt whether Spinoza always drew it himself,

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 361

The passage on the general necessity of revelation to
which attention has just been called deserves further con
sideration. It has been seen that the foundation of theology
and the sum of faith is thaTTmen can be saved by mere
obedience without knowledge. Not that obedience is the
only way ; for knowledge leads to the same life and the same
salvation, as Spinoza is careful to explain. But this efficacy
of obedience is not demonstrated : it may be asked then, why
do we believe it ? If blindly and without reason, then we act
foolishly ; if on the other hand we say it is capable of proof,
theology is absorbed in philosophy.

' Now to this I answer, I clearly hold that this fundamental doctrine
of theology cannot be discovered by natural reason, at least there
hath no man been found to demonstrate it, and therefore revelation
was highly necessary \ but nevertheless we may so use our judg
ment as to accept the revelation once made with at least a moral
certainty, I say moral certainty : for we cannot look to have greater
certainty herein than the prophets themselves to whom it was first
revealed, and whose certainty was yet but moral, as we have already
shown. Wherefore those go clean astray who endeavour to prove
the authority of Scripture by arguments of the mathematical kind.
.... And we may reasonably embrace this fundamental position of
theology and Scripture, though it cannot be mathematically proved.
It is folly to reject merely for this cause that which is confirmed by
the witness of so many prophets, from which flows great comfort to
men who do not excel in understanding, and to the commonwealth
ensues no small advantage ; and which we may believe without any
hurt or danger ; as if for the rational conduct of life we could admit
nothing as truth which on any plausible ground may be called in
doubt, or as if the greater part of our actions were not uncertain and
hazardous.'

Once more, at the end of the chapter Spinoza repeats that
he attaches the highest value to revealed religion in the sense
we have just explained.

' Since we cannot perceive by the light of nature that mere
obedience is a way to salvation, but only revelation teaches that this is
brought to pass by the singular grace of God, which our reason can-

362 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

not attain, it appears by consequence that the Scriptures have
brought exceeding comfort to mankind. All men without exception
can obey, and thef£~15e~l5ut a very few, compared with the whole of
human kind, who acquire a virtuous disposition by the guidance of
reason : so that if we had not this witness of Scripture, we should
doubt of the salvation of nearly all men.'

Two points of some interest are left unexplained by this
statement, namely, the precise meaning of salvation or being
saved, and how, if at all, the facts of revelation or the truth
revealed can be expressed in philosophical language. In the
first question there is nothing to detain us. For Spinoza
salvation cannot mean anything else than that deliverance
from the passions to which the other way, the clear but
arduous way of reason, is shown in the 'Ethics.' But of
revelation what are we to understand ? E[pw can God as con-

^ •* M^^M-M^A-^ttM*!^

^ceived by Spinoza, the being in whom is the infinite reality of
infinite worlds, whose freedom is the necessity of the universe,
to whose nature neither understanding nor will must be specially
ascribed, reveal particular truths or duties to men by particular
acts of grace ? Again^the alleged conten^s_of_revelation are
hardl^adequateTo the machinery. It seems paradoxical, or
at least not consistent with Spinoza's general way of think
ing, to call in the Law and the Prophets to assure us that the
reward of a tranquil mind may be earned by righteousness
and goodwill without philosophy: for this is what the mes
sage of Scripture seems to come to, when we substitute for the
term salvation the meaning almost certainly attached to it by
Spinoza. Is this a matter to learn from signs and wonders ?
or, thinking and saying what he does of signs and wonders in
general, can Spinoza really mean to assert the supernatural
communication of this one point of practical knowledge ?
On the other hand, the words are express and even emphatic :
and we have no right to sacrifice Spinoza's good faith to the
dogma of his rigid consistency, which has arisen, as I have
already had occasion to point out, from attaching exaggerated

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 363

importance to the geometrical form used in the ' Ethics.'
Perhaps we are free to suppose that Spinoza regarded revela
tion as the manifestation of a particular kind of human
genius, the disclosure of moral truth by an insight natural in
its presence and operation, but occurring only in a few men.
But if prophecy be simply a kind of genius, why should it
have ceased ? And why does Spinoza lay so much stress on
the necessity of the true prophet's doctrine being confirmed
by a sign ? In order to dispose of modern impostors, one
might think at first sight. But he must have well known
that professing prophets are never at a loss for a sign ; and
moreover he has a much shorter way with new propounders of
revelations, as we saw in considering his theory of politics.
Altogether the difficulty remains considerable. There is an

' the

' Tractatus Theologicp-PoHtjcus/ which goes a long way,
but refuses to go alHengths. and the thorough-going specula
tion of the 'Ethics.' Difference of dates will not account for
it, since we know that Spinoza's philosophy was matured long
before the Theologico-political Treatise was published.

The difficulty, however, applies only to our estimate of
Spinoza's personal opinions. For philosophical criticism the
'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' may be taken by itself, and
anything propounded or suggested by it may be adopted or
left aside on its own merits. And the view of revelation
there put forward seems to contain at least this truth : that
the appearance of a religion which puts a moral law before
ceremonies, and organizes morality instead of merely organiz
ing sacrifices, processions, penances, miracles, indulgences, is a
capital fact in the history of the world. The religion which
reaches this height, whether gradually or by the first impulse
of a founder, is vital and has the means of victory. Judaism,
Buddhism, Christianity, to some extent Mahometanism,
possess or have possessed this power. It is true that religion
always tends, in the hands of its ordinary ministers (who can-

364 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

not as a rule be more than ordinary men), to revert to the
ceremonial stage. It is also true that the opposite danger of
mysticism is ever present. But when a religion has once been
or become moral, there is always room for men of moral
genius to arise within it and revive the latent power. This
they do at the risk of being misunderstood and disowned ; in
some cases they find themselves cut off altogether, and found
a new religion or communion ; in others the Church is wise
in time, and their work is openly or tacitly accepted'. Thus
Judaism underwent a great moral transformation in the hands
of the prophets, but not without great struggles ; and again,
at the very time when the Jewish polity was doomed to final
destruction, the moral side of Jewish religion received a
further development the results of which have never been lost.
On the other hand Buddhism owes its independent existence
to Brahman jealousy and exclusiveness ; it appears, at least,
that the Buddha had for himself no intention of going out
side the very large bounds of Hindu orthodoxy. In our own
country Wesley, who elsewhere might have become the
founder of a new cosmopolitan order, was driven to leave his
name to a sect. And in Christianity we have the greatest ot
all examples (though as to its actual scale and extent not
greater than Buddhism) of a religious movement not origin
ally aggressive assuming an entirely new character under the
stress of opposition, and becoming at last a power of the first
magnitude. It is curiously parallel with Buddhism in the
circumstances that it has been reduced to insignificance in
the scenes of its early conquests, and has found its strength
in distant lands and among men of alien races and traditions.
What has Spinoza to say of the power of Christianity and
the person of its founder ? His own words shall presently be
given. But we must attempt to find an equivalent for them
in the language of our own time : and, leaving aside the
question of revelation in the abstract, I think we may say
that Spinoza looked on Jesus as a man of transcendent and

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 365

unique moral genius, standing out above Moses and the
prophets in some such way as Moses was conceived by the
Jewish doctors to stand above all other prophets.1 But he
did not regard him as otherwise of a different mould from
mortal men. The mysteries propounded by Christian theo
logians appeared to him scarcely to deserve express contradic
tion : they were not so much untrue as unintelligible. In
discussing the nature of prophetic vision (Tract. Theol-
Polit. c. i, §§ 22-24) Spinoza says : —

* Though we clearly understand that God can communicate
immediately with men (for he communicates his nature to our mind 2
without any bodily instrument) ; yet that a man should purely in his
mind perceive matters which be not contained in the first principles
of our knowledge, nor can be deduced therefrom, his mind must be
of surpassing excellence and beyond man's capacity. Wherefore I
believe not that any man ever came to that singular height of per
fection but Christ, to whom the ordinances of God that lead men to
salvation were revealed, not in words or visions, but immediately : so
that God manifested himself to the apostles by the mind of Christ, as
formerly to Moses by means of a voice in the air. And therefore
the voice of Christ may be called, like that which Moses heard, the
voice of God. In this sense we may likewise say that the wisdom
of God, that is, a wisdom above man's, took man's nature in Christ,
and that Christ is the way of salvation. But here it is needful to ex
plain that of those things which sundry churches determine concerning
Christ I have naught to say, neither do I deny them ; for I am free
to confess I comprehend them not. What I have now said I
collect from Scripture alone.'

And again in the chapter on God's laws (c. 4) it is said
that even Moses received and understood his revelations not
as declarations of eternal truth but as positive laws or pre
cepts, and regarded God under the human attributes of a
prince and lawgiver.

1 This, I say/ adds Spinoza, ( is to be affirmed only of the prophets
who deliver laws in the name of God ; but not of Christ. Of Christ,
though he too appears to have delivered laws in the name of God,

1 Cp» Tract TheoL-Pol. c. l,§ 21. 2 That is, in our ordinary knowledge.

366 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

we are yet to think that he perceived things truly and adequately.
For Christ was rather the very mouth of God than a prophet ; since
(as we showed in the first chapter) God gave revelations to mankind by
the mind of Christ, as aforetime by angels, that is, by particular
voices and visions.'

And if Christ ever declared after the fashion of a lawgiver
the truths which he perceived in their eternal necessity, it
must have been from regard to the ignorance of his hearers.
Spinoza thus appears to ascribe to Christ not only a sur
passing power of moral intuition, but a corresponding strength
and clearness of understanding in relation to the truths thus
perceived. The reader may already have observed, what is still
more plain in reading the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' at
large, that Spinoza takes no account of the historical develop
ment either of morality or of religion. It was hardly possible
that he should ; the omission is simply to be noted and borne
in mind.

These opinions of Christ's office and character were natur
ally unacceptable even to moderately orthodox readers. In
1675 Oldenburg asked Spinoza (Ep. 20) to explain himself
farther on this and other points. The answer on this head is
as follows (Ep. 21) : —

' I say that it is by no means necessary to salvation to know
Christ after the flesh ; but of the eternal Son of God, that is, the
eternal wisdom of God, which has shown itself forth in all things, and
chiefly in the mind of man, and most chiefly of all in Jesus Christ,
we are to think far otherwise. For without this no one can attain
the state of blessedness ; since this alone teaches what is true and
false, good and evil. And because, as I have said, this wisdom was
chiefly shown forth through Jesus Christ, his disciples preached the
same as by him it was revealed to them, and showed that in that
spirit of Christ they could exalt themselves above others. As for
the proposition added by sundry churches, that God took on himself
the nature of man, I have distinctly stated that I know not what the
mean. To speak plainly, they seem to me to speak as improperly
as if one should tell me that a circle had assumed the nature of a
square.'

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 367

' Oldenburg is unsatisfied, and insists on the necessity of
keeping a certain amount of miracle and mystery as the
foundation of Christianity (Ep. 22). This leads to an answer
where Spinoza comes very near to the specific conclusions of
modern theological criticism, and (what is more remarkable)
by much the same road (Ep. 23).

' As to my opinion of miracles, I have sufficiently expounded it,
if I mistake not, in the theologico-political treatise. I now add but
this much : if you consider these matters, to wit that Christ appeared
not to the Sanhedrin, not to Pilate, nor to any of the unbelieving,
but only to the saints j that God hath no right or left hand, nor is
naturally in any one place, but everywhere j that matter is everywhere
the same, and that God cannot display himself outside the world in
the imaginary space men feign ; lastly, that the fabric of the human
body is restrained by the mere weight of the air within certain
bounds : you will then easily perceive that the appearance of Christ
after his death was not unlike that in which God appeared to
Abraham, when Abraham saw men and asked them to dine with
him. You will say, surely all the Apostles believed that Christ had
risen from the dead and in truth ascended into heaven ; which I deny
not. For Abraham likewise believed that God had dined with him,
and all Israel believed that God had come down from heaven in fire
to Mount Sinai and spoken to them in his proper person ; whereas
these and sundry other matters of the like sort were appearances or
revelations adapted to the capacity and conceit of the men to whom
God was minded thereby to reveal his counsel. I conclude there
fore that the resurrection of Christ from the dead was in truth spiritual,
revealed only to the faithful, and to them after their capacity ; con
sisting in this, that Christ was gifted with eternity and rose from the
dead (the dead, I mean, in that sense in which Christ said : let the
dead bury their dead), in that by his life and death he gave a singular
example of holiness j and he raises his disciples from the dead in so
much as they follow this example of his life and death. And it were
no hard matter to explain the whole doctrine of the Gospel accord
ing to this hypothesis. Nay, the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle
to the Corinthians can be explained by no other, or Paul's arguments
understood, for on the common hypothesis they are evidently weak
and may be confuted with little pains ; not to mention that in
general the Christians have interpreted spiritually what the Jews have
interpreted materially/

368 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Oldenburg again rejoins that the narrative of the passion
and resurrection is continuous, lively, and circumstantial, and
cannot be taken otherwise than literally throughout. Spinoza
replies (Ep. 25) by repeating his opinion yet more explicitly.

'With you I take the passion, death and burial of Christ
literally, but his resurrection I take allegorically. I admit that this
also is told by the Evangelists with such circumstances as that we
cannot deny that the Evangelists themselves believed Christ's body to
have risen and ascended into heaven, there to sit on the right hand
of God ; and that he might have been seen by unbelievers, had any
such been in the places where Christ appeared to his disciples : but
in this they might well be mistaken without prejudice to the Gospel
doctrine, as happened to other prophets also, whereof I have given
instances in my former letters. But Paul, to whom also Christ
appeared afterwards, boasts that he knows Christ not according to
the flesh but according to the spirit.'

Oldenburg was not content with this, but once more pro
tested (exactly as an English Broad Churchman might now
protest if he fell into a similar correspondence with a Dutch
theologian of the liberal school) that the literal historical fact
of the Resurrection is the indispensable foundation of Chris
tianity. So far as we know, he had the last word. It is need
less to dilate on the wonderfully modern character of Spinoza's
criticism ; it speaks for itself.

As regards the practical problem of religion considered as
a guide of life, Spinoza seems to make a distinction between
philosophers and the majority. For the philosopher religion
is acquiescence in the order of nature, with the delight in
knowledge thereby engendered, and living a righteous life at
,the bidding of reason, Questions about particular revelations
and supernatural narratives are for him nothing else than his
torical and critical questions of more or less interest in them
selves, but not affecting the conduct of life. God and the
world stand sure for him without miracles or prophecies. But
for the majority religion is obedience to a revealed rule ; a
rule which can and ought to be reduced to the simplest terms,

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 369

and almost or entirely freed from requirements of belief in
specific supernatural events. And it is pretty clear that
Spinoza is not only describing what he deems practicable for
his own time, but deems that it must be so for all time. Now
that we have come to regard human thought as the result of
a continuous process of growth, we cannot think distinctions
of this kind maintainable. We cannot hold it a permanent
necessity of human nature, however inevitable it may seem for
a long time to come, that there should be one creed for the
few and another or others for the many. The state of things
contemplated by Spinoza is an artificial compromise which
could not last even in the most favourable conditions. In what
manner religion will be transformed in the future we cannot
tell : whether by the gradual widening and purifying of exist
ing forms, or by some new manifestation of individual genius,
or by the diffused working of strong and subtle thought, dis
solving forms and leaving no vocation for prophets. It has
hitherto been the aim of religions to fix man's ideal in life once
for all. We now find that man's life and thought will not
be fixed, that our ideals themselves are shifting and changing
shapes, figures of ' the shade cast by the soul of man.' One
after another the advancing tide reaches them, rises above
them, and they disappear. Must we simply acquiesce in this
perpetual flux of our aspirations ? or may we suppose that
some new form will emerge which, if not absolutely permanent,
may be as constant for us and our children as the ideals of
bygone generations were for them ? It is conceivable, as it
once seemed in a kind of vision to the clear-headed and truth-
loving friend to whose memory I have dedicated this book,
that the sense of natural law might become an organic intui
tion and fill the world with a new beauty that would leave no
room for questioning ; or, to express it in Spinoza's language,
that the ' intellectual love of God ' should become a constant
power and delight in the daily life of our successors. It is
not long since a leader in science uttered in a scientific meet-

B B

370 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

ing the hope that one day, through the continued evolution
of human powers, ' light may stream in upon the darkness,
and reveal to man the great mystery of thought.' Of this also,
if we may not now say that it will be, we must not say that it
will not be. Difficulties one can see with ease ; and it is al-
vvays unlikely that the first expression of a great hope should
closely correspond to the fulfilment. But difficulties are made
to beget daring, not to nourish despair. Such visions and
hopes as these are not to be lightly deemed of, shadowy
though they may appear. For men will not seek without high
longings ; and if seeking they find not what their imagination
longed for, still they find, and the search itself is worthy.

But howsoever light is to come, or we are to be enlightened
to see it, no cry or complaint will hasten it : we must work
and wait, but above all work. Least of all must we listen to
those who would entreat or command us to go backward in
stead of forward. Neither the stars in their courses nor the
working of man's thought will go back for any man's word,
or for prayers, or for threatenings. To those who have not
the temper of intellectual enterprise, whose feelings are indis-
solubly entwined with the traditions of the past, and who
would fain recall for the world the days of peaceful belief, we
can only say, sorrowing for them but steadfast and hopeful for
ourselves, that so it must be. But to those who chide and re
proach we shall show, if need be, a bold and even a warlike
front, answering to their denunciations with Haeckel : Impavidi
progrediamur. Science, they cry, is irreverent ; she has laid
hands on mysteries and made the world profane and common.
In the face of such language it is not for those who bear the
lamp of knowledge to apologize and speak humbly. They
need no excuse and have no occasion to do their work by the
good leave of the letter-worshippers and article-makers. Nay,
but it is the makers of articles and dogmas who are irreverent.
They have desecrated the glory of the world with dark habi-

SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY. 3?I

tations and dwellings of idols, not enduring to live in the open
light ; and when their tabernacles are broken down, and the
sun in his strength quells at last the unclean fumes of their
censers and their sacrifices, their eyes are blinded with that
splendour, and they cry out that the world is darkened.
'Contaminate est in operibus eorum, et fornicati sunt in adinven-
tionibus suis. Reverence' will never be wanting from those
who study nature with a whole heart ; reverence for the truth
of things, and for all good work and love of the truth in man.
And for the great leaders of men who have conquered them
not with the sword but with the spirit, who, seeing above their
fellows what man's life is and might be, have given their own
lives to make it worthier, for these chiefly shall our reverence
be unfailing. Whether such an one was named among his
people Socrates the son of Sophroniscus, or GauLama who is
called the Buddha, or Jesus who is called the Christ, he shall
have endless honour and worship of free men, and not least of
those who have learnt most from Spinoza for their thoughts
of man and the world.

Forward, then, we must ever go, finding what light we
may ; and he that most surely finds will be he that least fears
danger and loss. The old Northern tale tells how Brynhild
lay on the enchanted mountain, cast in a deep sleep and clad
in mail of proof, with a wall of fire round about her. But
Sigurd came and rode through the fire, and cut through the
armour, and delivered her ; for he was fearless of heart, and
rode Odin's horse, and bare Odin's sword, wherewith he had
slain the worm that guarded the great treasure. And now
men, being afraid to look on the living face of truth, have
charmed her asleep and, for that she was not strong enough
by herself, have imprisoned her in a grievous weight of armour,
clothing her with creeds, and confessions, and articles. And
the great and deadly serpent Superstition, bred of fear and
ignorance, keeps watch on the treasure of knowledge. Only

B B 2

3/2 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

he who has slain the serpent and knows not fear can bestride
Odin's horse and ride through the wall of fire ; only he who
wields Odin's sword can draw near to that sleeping might and
beauty, and sunder the stifling links of mail, and show the
divine face to men.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 373

CHAPTER XII.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT.

For such men as these death is not the end of life. They live on in our remem
brance of them and in their works. Their thought animates others who come after
them, and again others who come after these. Were not that the true immortality ?

P. A. S. VAN LIMBURG BROUWER : Akbar.

I saw the body of Wisdom, and of shifting guise was she wrought,

And I stretched out my hands to hold her, and a mote of the dust they caught ;

And I prayed her to come for my teaching, and she came in the rridnight dream —

And I woke and might not remember, nor betwixt her tangle deem :

She spake, and how might I hearken? I heard, and how might I know ?

I knew, and how might I fashion, or her hidden glory show ?

WILLIAM MORRIS : Sigurd the Volsung.

To give an account of the reception and fortunes of Spinoza's
thought ; to trace the signs of its acceptance by a few in the
time when it was for the most part rejected with indignation
or contempt ; to follow its working in the various fields of
literature and speculation where, having at last risen to the
due height of its worth, it has more lately made itself felt : —
this would be an undertaking equivalent, if fully performed,
to writing the history of modern philosophy. We should not
go beyond the truth in saying with Auerbach, one of those
who have in our own time done most to make Spinoza's work
better known and understood, that Spinoza's mind has fed
the thoughts of two centuries. And we should much err if in
considering Spinoza's influence in Europe we confined our
view to the marks which his system has left in the formal
theories or discussions of later philosophers. It has more
than once been remarked that, while much recent philosophy
is in divers manners and degrees pervaded by Spinozism,

374 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

there has never been a Spinozist school as there has been a
Cartesian and a Kantian school. The truth is that the
strength of Spinozism is not in the system as such, but in its
method and habit of mind. Hostile critics have attacked the
system ever since it was made known, some with real power,
some with desperate captiousness ; but even when they are
successful the spirit eludes them. Not only will it not be
driven from philosophy, but in like manner it works its way
into regions where formal philosophy is unwelcome or un
known. Religion and poetry become its carriers unawares,
and it might not be too fanciful to trace its presence even in
the fine arts. It is more or less true of every great philo
sopher, but it is eminently true of Spinoza, that the history
of his philosophy is interwoven with the general history of
culture. What has been written about Spinoza or directly
adopted from him represents but a part of his power in the
world, and a still less part of the activity and power of the
ideas which Spinoza clearly discerned and firmly grasped
when they were as yet too hard even for strong men.

All that I can attempt here is to show in outline how it
has fared with Spinoza's philosophy in the world of science
and letters down to our own time. The reader who is curious
enough in the matter to wish for critical and bibliographical
information will find references in the introductory chapter
which may help him to seek further for himself. We may
conveniently begin, as we shall have to end, with Spinoza's
own country. The first effect of his writings in Holland was
to raise a storm of controversial indignation, chiefly against
the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ; ' not that it was more
obnoxious to orthodox criticism than the * Ethics,' but it had
more general and practical interest. Books and pamphlets
were poured forth in abundance by writers of various degrees
of notoriety and ability, and were esteemed at the time — so
at least we are told by Colerus, who gives the titles of several
of them — to have accomplished the refutation of Spinoza with

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 375

all the success that could be desired. I suppose there is no
body now living who has read them ; and perhaps there is no
enormous presumption in suspecting that the reading of them
would not now be found profitable, though it might possibly
be amusing now and then. This zeal for refuting the blasphe
mous, atheistic, deceitful, soul-destroying works of Spinoza —
such were the epithets with which the authors garnished their
arguments, in the usual taste of the time — was by no means
confined to the theological faculty. Several of these writers
were laymen ; at least one, Spinoza's correspondent Blyen-
bergh, had no pretension to be a scholar. Medicine produced
its champions too. The Jewish physician Isaac Orobio was
in the field in good time with a tract against Spinoza and his
apologists ; and Dr. Bontekoe, in the course of an extremely
quaint work on the numberless virtues of tea, published only
two years after Spinoza's death, took occasion emphatically
to renounce Spinozism. Some one had accused him, it
appears, of atheism. ' I will one day show the world,' he
exclaims, ' what sort of an atheist I am, when I refute the
godless works of Spinoza, and likewise those of Hobbes and
Machiavelli, three of the most cursed villains that ever walked
this earth.' l The variety of Dr. Bontekoe's other pursuits
and quarrels (which were many) appears to have prevented
him from fulfilling this rather comprehensive promise. It
happened afterwards, curiously enough, that the career of the
greatest of Dutch physicians, and the leader of European
medicine in his time, was in a manner determined by the
blind fury of orthodox company against Spinoza. Blind it
was in the particular case at least, as the story will show.
Boerhaave was in his youth intended for the ministry. While
he was a theological student, he was travelling one day with
a person who abused Spinoza in violent language, something
like Dr. Bontekoe's, we may suppose. Boerhaave, though

' Tractaat van httexcelknsteKruvd Thee &t. In's Gravenhage, MDCLXXIX.
P- 349, cp. p. 199-

376 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

himself no follower of Spinoza, could not refrain from asking
the speaker if he had read any of Spinoza's writings. This
was enough to fasten on Boerhaave the name of Spinozist :
and accordingly he betook himself to medicine, seeing him
self cut off from all prospect of advancement in the Church.1
Only one writer, so far as we know, Abraham Cuffeler, had
the courage to stand forth in open defence of the ' Ethics.' 2

So many were the refuters of Spinoza that before long
they fell out among themselves, and two or three of them
incurred the suspicion of being no better than Spinozists in
disguise. Such accusations are familiar in theological con
troversy, the more zealous champions seeing an enemy in
every one who fails to go all lengths with them ; and the
grounds were probably as slight in this case as they generally
are. At the same time undoubted manifestations of Spino-
zism arose within a generation after Spinoza's death in the
most unexpected quarter, the Reformed Church of the Nether
lands itself. The local disturbance produced by the move
ment was considerable ; and it is said that traces of it remain
even now in small isolated societies who find their spiritual
comfort in mystical doctrines once formally condemned by
the church as Spinozistic heresies. One of the first leaders
was Pontiaan van Hattem of Bergen-op-Zoom, whose works
soon acquired fame enough for Hattemist and Hattemism
to become current terms of vituperation. Van Hattem had
several disciples of more or less note, among whom we may
here mention the female enthusiast Dinah Jans, and Jacob
Bril, who pushed his master's mysticism to extremes. Pro
bably the movement came at this stage under the influence
of Bohme and the earlier German mystics ; and we must
remember, as M. Janet has pointed out, that apart from

1 H. J. Betz, Levensschets van Baruch de Spinoza, (The Hague, 1876), p. 25;
Van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, s.v. Boerhaave. It
appears that he had actually disputed against Spinoza in an academical thesis.

2 Specimen artis ratiodnandi, &c., 1684, Van der Linde, Bibliograjie^
nos. 1 5 la, 1 51^, i$ic.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 377

Spinoza's writing a certain mystical and pantheistic tendency
already existed in the theology of the Low Countries. Car-
tesianism, too, had its mystical developments. But the
original connexion of Hattemism with Spinoza seems to be
free from doubt. Hattemism, in fact, was an exaggeration of
Spinozism on its apparently mystical side. Faith was defined
as the knowledge of man's absolute union with Christ, who is
God conceived in his full perfection, to which this union be
longs ; while the foundation of sin is the error of regarding
God's being as separate from or opposed to that of man.
The true Christian is the man who has attained beatitude
by the consciousness of this identity. Evil is regarded, with
Spinoza, as a negative and relative conception ; nay, the sin
against the Holy Ghost is explained to consist in attributing
any positive existence to evil and sin. Van Hattem's only
criticism on Spinoza was that he arrived at his results by
speculation instead of finding them in Scripture. His doc
trines were elaborately condemned in a kind of official
syllabus by the ecclesiastical authorities of Middelburg.
Part of the declaration required of suspected persons ran as
follows : ' Especially I renounce the doctrine taught by P.
van Hattem in his writings, and account the same blasphe
mous and soul-destroying. I testify that I hold in abomina
tion these Spinozistic opinions, in what words or language
soever they may be expressed.' At the same place, and I
presume at or about the same time, a number of anonymous
works were burnt by order of the authorities of Middelburg as
being ' full of the abominable and blasphemous sentiments
of the Libertines, modern Spinozists, Hattemists, and Free
thinkers.' l Another conspicuous figure in this episode ap
pearing somewhat later than Van Hattem is Frederick van
Leenhof, a minister of Zwolle. His offence consisted in the
publication of a book entitled ' Heaven on Earth ; or a short
and clear account of true and constant blessedness ' (1703) ;

1 Van der Linde, no. 169, note. This was in 1714.

378 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

which was in fact an attempt to construct a rationalized system
of Christian ethics embodying most of Spinoza's doctrines.
Leenhof accepts from Spinoza not only determinism (in itself
an orthodox doctrine enough) but the ethical condemnation of
sorrow and all passions involving it. He expressly adopted
Spinoza's definition of pleasure, and justified this in an apolo
getic work on the ground that Spinoza's ethical definitions were
an improvement on those of Descartes. He also set forth
in language closely copied from Spinoza's the doctrine that
painful feelings cease to be painful in so far as we form
adequate ideas of them and contemplate them as part of the
eternal order of the world. Withal he steadily protested that
his opinions were not amenable to the charge of heterodoxy ;
but the authorities of the Reformed Church thought other
wise, and continued to denounce the Leenhoffian heresy all
through the eighteenth century.

For the rest, this theological strife in the Netherlands had
no effect, so far as appears, on the knowledge or criticism of
Spinoza's doctrine elsewhere : and it was soon so much for
gotten that it escaped the notice even of historians of philo
sophy till, towards the beginning of the most recent period of
Spinozistic criticism, it was opportunely brought to light by Dr.
van der Linde in a monograph which he has since corrected and
completed in certain particulars in his Bibliography of Spinoza.
The light he now throws upon this episode makes no direct
addition to our understanding of Spinoza's philosophy ; but
it is interesting to know that the immediate effect of his work
was so much greater than had been supposed. I do not know
how far Spinoza may have been similarly taken up by readers
of a mystic turn at other times and places. An attempt has
been made to show that Swedenborg, the most illustrious of
modern mystics, borrowed considerably from him. On this
ground, however, nothing is more deceptive than general re
semblances.1

1 See Van der Linde, no. 331 ; R, Willis, Benedict de Spinoza, p. 187.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 379

Let us turn to the reception of Spinoza's work by the
larger world of European thought It is quite possible to ex
aggerate the neglect of it which prevailed for about a century
after his death ; it is quite possible also to exaggerate the
misunderstanding which accompanied and partly caused this
neglect. Spinoza was rejected, but never forgotten ; and re
jected not so much because his ideas were wrongly appre
hended as because few of his readers were educated up to
the point of tolerating them. The rejection, however, was
complete. Spinoza was for the time thrown clean out of
the stream of European speculation, and philosophers in all
countries went their way without taking any serious account
of him. A variety of circumstances combined to produce this
result. First and most obvious is the enmity of orthodox theo
logians of all denominations. But Spinoza had also incurred
the hatred of the philosophical party which, itself recently
under the ban of the churches, had now won for itself a re
spectable position, and in many seats of learning was supreme.
The Cartesians could never forgive Spinoza for his indepen
dence. To have improved on Descartes and gone the length
of openly contradicting him was in their eyes the worst heresy
of all. On the other hand, the affinities of Spinozism were
plain enough to give a handle for ugly-sounding accusations
of Descartes' teaching in its tendency if not in its actual con
tents : and thus it became almost necessary for Cartesians,
anxious to vindicate their new-fledged orthodoxy, to be zealous
in denouncing this strange growth which seemed to many to
be of their own stock. Spinoza's philosophy had to contend
with the whole weight of the Cartesian school as well as with
the power of the churches. There was one man who perhaps
had the power, if the will had been present, of doing justice
to Spinoza and seeing it done by others. Leibnitz was cer
tainly capable of understanding Spinoza ; he had held cor
respondence with him, seen and talked with him. We know
that he read his writings with some care. His own philoso-

380 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

phical conceptions were probably fixed before they could have
been much affected by anything in Spinoza's : but a seri
ous recognition of Spinoza's importance by Leibnitz, however
much criticism had accompanied it, would have made it im
possible for Spinoza to be treated with contempt.

Leibnitz, however, not only failed to do justice to Spinoza,
but encouraged injustice. It is difficult to believe that his con
duct in this matter was sincere. The references to Spinoza in
his published works are in a tone of systematic deprecia
tion. It was Leibnitz who started the shallow dictum, since
repeated and expanded by many imitators, that Spinoza did
nothing but cultivate some of the seed sown by Descartes.
His personal intercourse with Spinoza, which could not be
denied, is extenuated as much as possible. But in general
Spinoza is simply ignored, even where one would most expect
to find reference to him, as in the theory of pre-established
harmony. Not that I can regard the pre-established harmony
of Leibnitz as borrowed from Spinoza.1 But when Leibnitz
is professedly reviewing the various attempts already made
to explain the relation of mind and matter, it is surprising to
find all mention of Spinoza's theory omitted. There would
be no great cause for surprise if the theory were mentioned
without Spinoza's name ; that would be only in the manner
of the time. But the omission is total, and cannot well be
an accident. Then Leibnitz's saying already quoted, and still
more, his other epigrammatic judgment that ' Spinoza begins
where Descartes ends, in naturalism/ have very much the air
of being ingeniously contrived to disparage in one breath
Spinoza for having only developed the philosophy of Descartes,
and the philosophy of Descartes for being capable of such a
development. They point the way to the charitable senti
ment uttered in perfect good faith by a modern French writer
after a careful study of both systems : ' Let us forgive Descartes
for having raised up Spinoza ! ' Whether Leibnitz had the

1 See p. 192 above,

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 381

deliberate intention of exalting his own originality at Spinoza's
expense, or was misled by an unconscious bias, it is certain
that his action had a considerable share in keeping Spinoza
out of his rightful place. So, as we have said, philosophy
went its way without giving ear to Spinoza, and sunk in the
hands of Leibnitz's successors into dogmatic formalism.

Meanwhile a new school was arising in England who
might possibly have recognized in Spinoza's teaching the
voice of a friend if not of a master. But it fell out otherwise.
The English philosophical school grew up in perfect inde
pendence, and perhaps it was better so. Locke, Berkeley,
Hume all make some little mention of Spinoza ; but in every
case it is so slight and desultory as to show plainly that they
had never thought of Spinoza as a writer deserving to be
seriously considered. Locke brackets him with Hobbes in
loose condemnation as 'those justly decried authors.' Berkeley
speaks of 'those wild imaginations of Vanini, Hobbes, and
Spinoza ; ' and of ' modern Atheism, be it of Hobbes, Spinoza,
Collins, or whom you will : ' and he seems to have accepted
the popular view of Spinozism as a merely formal system.
The following passage from ' Alciphron ' (Seventh Dialogue,
§ 29, Works, ii. 334, ed. Eraser) is worth quoting: —

* I have heard, said I, Spinosa represented as a man of close
argument and demonstration.

* He did, replied Crito, demonstrate ; but it was after such a
manner as one may demonstrate anything. Allow a man the
privilege to make his own definitions of common words, and it will
be no hard matter for him to infer conclusions which in one sense
shall be true and in another false, at once seeming paradoxes and
manifest truisms. For example, let but Spinosa define natural right
to be natural power, and he will easily demonstrate that ' whatever a
man can do ' he hath a right to do. Nothing can be plainer than the
folly of this proceeding : but our pretenders to the lumen siccum are
so passionately prejudiced against religion, as to swallow the grossest
nonsense and sophistry of weak and wicked writers for demonstra
tion.'

382 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

It appears, however, that Berkeley had really read Spinoza ;
which is more than can be said of either Locke or Hume. It
is possible that Locke, taking the general Continental estimate
on trust, set down Spinoza as a kind of erratic Cartesian ;
and we know that from Cartesianism in any form he expected
no solid profit. As to Hume, Professor Huxley has pointed
out that he was pretty uniformly indolent in making himself
acquainted with philosophical literature even on points that
immediately concerned his work. If he ever did take up
Spinoza, it is unlikely that he had the patience to pierce
through the rind of definitions and axioms. Indeed it has
been the common fate of many readers and critics of Spinoza
to stick fast in the First Part of the Ethics. But it is also
possible that if Hume had looked far enough into Spinoza to
find other things more to his mind, as would have been, for
example, the appendix on Final Causes, and the pitiless on
slaughts made in various places of the Ethics on the current
logical doctrines of universals and the like, he would not have
cared to leave any evidence of it in his work. The open
defence of opinions commonly reprobated was not at all con
sistent with his attitude of pure scepticism. Besides, to profess
any particular interest in Spinoza was at that time equivalent
to throw ing oneself into the troubled waters of theological and
sectarian polemics, which was exactly what Hume wanted to
avoid.

For the misapprehension of Spinoza's philosophical im
portance was not only consistent with his making a great stir
in the theological department of the world of letters, but was
to a great extent the natural consequence of the repulsion
excited by the theological bearings of his doctrine. Divines
filled with horror at the impious writer who denied an extra-
mundane Deity, final, causes, and free will, had not the time or
temper to examine his contributions to the science of human
nature. Moreover, the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' had
already made it impossible for the ' Ethics ' to be fairly dealt

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 383

with. We have already seen how it was received in the
Netherlands when it first appeared. In England it does not
seem to have been much known till some time after Spinoza's
death; though as early as 1678 Cudworth gave a contemp
tuous paragraph to it in his ' True Intellectual System of the
Universe ' (p. 707). Cudworth declares that ' as for that late
theological politician ' who contended that ' a miracle is no
thing but a name which the ignorant vulgar gives to opus
naturcz insolitum, any unwonted work of nature, or to what
themselves can assign no cause of,' he finds his discourse
' every way so weak, groundless, and inconsiderable, as not
to deserve a confutation.1 A translation was published in
1689, not very elegantly written, and not disclosing either
the translator's or the author's name. Either in this form
or in the original Latin the treatise must have obtained a
good deal of currency, as in 1697 we find one Matthias
Earbery coming forward to demolish it with more valour
than wisdom (' Deism examin'd and confuted in an answer
to a book intitled, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus '). Earbery
admits with a sort of apology that Spinoza had some scholar
ship. ' Nor am I ignorant,' he says in his Preface, ' that the
author of this book was very well versed (pardon the expres
sion) in the writings of Moses and the Prophets.' But he
soon makes up for any excess of civility he may have been
guilty of : 'I thought it would be at least some punishment,
as it were, to the very shades and Manes of this author to
show the world that he, who so long has found a place in
the libraries and hands of very learned men, has scarce for
his stupidity, and trifling way of arguing, merit to obtain a
place amongst the lowest forms of inferior animals.' In
course of time other champions of weightier metal attacked
the ' Ethics ' also, but still in distinctly theological interests.
John Howe, a great light of English nonconformity, devoted
a chapter of his book, ' The Living Temple,' to ' animadver
sions on Spinoza.' His refutation of Spinoza's metaphysical

384 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

principles is a fair specimen of the dry and windy jangling
over verbal definitions which then passed muster for philoso
phical discussion with the help of the reader's foregone con
clusion. No doubt it was much esteemed at the time, and
may be so still by readers who are able to reproduce in them
selves the mental condition of Howe's original audience, He
never gets beyond the definitions of Substance and Attribute,
and shows no sign of really understanding Spinoza. My
own impression is that he had not so much as read beyond
the First Part. But the most serious and capable polemic
against Spinoza was that of Clarke in his Boyle Lectures,
otherwise known as the Discourse concerning the Being and
Attributes of God. He is little more courteous, if at all,
than Earbery and Howe. Spinoza is described as ' the
most celebrated patron of atheism in our time ; ' his ' vanity,
folly, and weakness ' are exposed ; and his argument against
final causes is dismissed as hardly fit to be gravely refuted :
' I suppose it will not be thought that when once a man
comes to this he is to be disputed with any longer.' It is
nevertheless clear from the prominence given to Spinoza, as
to Hobbes, that Clarke practically thought both of them more
formidable than he was willing to admit. Clarke's criticism
turns on the conception of Substance, the doctrine of final
causes (on which, as just mentioned, he is curt and super
cilious), and free will.1 The Discourse was translated into
French in 1/17, and into Dutch as late as 1793, I presume
as a counterblast to the German revival of Spinozism.2 A
less famous divine, by name Brampton Gurdon, likewise
formally attacked Spinoza in a later series of Boyle Lectures,
in 1721 and 1722. 'Spinoza,' says Mr. Gurdon, 'is the only
person among the modern Atheists, that has pretended to give
us a regular scheme of Atheism ; and therefore I cannot act

1 Cp. L. Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 120 ; and as
to Tolancl, ib. 104.

8 Van der Linde, Bibliogr. nos. 292, 293.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 385

unfairly in making him the representative of their party.' Two
whole sermons and several passages in others are given to
demolishing so much of Spinoza's philosophy as is supposed
by the preacher to be still in need of demolition.

Unorthodox writers, as a rule, either neglected or affected
to neglect Spinoza for reasons which may easily be di
vined. Toland, however, speaks of him with considerable
respect, and justifies himself for so doing. Criticizing
Spinoza's physics, which he seems to have understood
very superficially, as ' undigested and unphilosophical,' Toland
maintains his right to say that ' yet Spinoza was for all that
a great and good man in many respects, as may not only be
seen by his works, but also by the account of his life since
that time publish'd by Colerus, a Lutheran minister, though as
contrary to some of his sentiments as any man breathing.'
Such language from Toland would only confirm Spinoza's
general reputation as an atheist of the worst kind, or perhaps
a deist (it mattered little which), among orthodox readers.
The popular judgment of the religious world on him is given
with amusing crudeness in a little dictionary of religions and
sects, for the most part written with fairness and moderation,
which was published about the beginning of this century and
went through many editions. In this book we read under
the head of Atheism, that ' Spinoza, a foreigner, was its noted
defender.' So far as I know, there was no serious philoso
phical consideration of Spinoza in England until it was
brought in by Coleridge along with his general stock of
German literature and philosophy. Thus the modern study
of Spinoza in England depends ultimately on the restoration
of his fame by Lessing in Germany, of which we have
presently to speak.

Meanwhile we must turn to the fortunes of Spinoza in
France ; on which ground the reader who wishes for more
detail than we can here give will find an excellent guide in
M. Paul Janet. Refutations of Spinoza were prepared by

C C

386 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

theologians in France even before the appearance of the
1 Opera Posthuma.' Afterwards Massillon declaimed against
him as a monster of impiety, and two Cardinals, De Polignac
and De Bernis, published versified refutations of him, the one
in Latin, the other in French : * De Bernis's performance is
commended by Ste.-Beuve as combining vigour with discre
tion. But perhaps the two cardinals should rather count as
showing that the name of Spinoza was the centre of a certain
excitement in the general world of letters. It appears on
the whole that Spinoza was more written and talked about in
France than in England during the eighteenth century ; but
he was no less completely excluded from the order of seriously
recognized philosophers. As in this country, he was rejected
with abhorrence by the orthodox, and, with few exceptions,
slighted by freethinking writers. Bayle gave a long article to
Spinoza in his Dictionary, which is a curious and unequal
mixture of anecdote, gossip, and criticism. Little of it is now
of any value ; but it was for a long time the only accessible
and comparatively readable account of Spinoza's system. The
alleged affinities of Spinozism with other ancient and modern
systems, including Sufism and Chinese Buddhism (known to
Bayle and his authorities as Foe Kiad) are traced with an
enormous display of learning. Spinoza is called an atheist
all through, and the philosophy of the ' Opera Posthuma '
described as a most absurd and monstrous theory, contra
dicting self-evident truths. It is surmised that most French
philosophers of the eighteenth century had no other know
ledge of Spinoza than they could derive from this article,
which was closely copied by Diderot in the Encyclopaedia.
Condillac, in his ' Traite de Systemes,' first published in 1749,
criticizes in some detail the First Part of the Ethics. He
thinks Bayle's criticism superficial, but arrives at a result
quite as unfavourable to Spinoza. He writes from an anti-
metaphysical-point of view and under the geometrical fallacy,
1 Specimens of both are quoted in Voltaire's notes to his poem, Lcs Syst ernes*

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 387

if I may so call it, which has misled so many of Spinoza's critics,
Spinoza is treated as a dogmatic trifler who deceives himself
with an unintelligible scholastic jargon. What Condillac
undertook to do and thought he had done was (nearly in his
own words) to show that Spinoza talked about things of which
he had no clear conception, that his definitions are loose, his
axioms far from being true, his propositions fantastic and
barren. He challenges the followers of Spinoza — as if there
was at that time supposed to be some considerable number of
them — to choose between abandoning the system as having
no real meaning, and providing a distinct explanation of the
meaning they profess to find in it.

Voltaire discusses Spinoza more or less deliberately in
various places. Of his person he speaks with high respect ;
in the criticism of his philosophy he goes in the main with
Bayle, though his language is not wholly consistent. Like
Bayle, he seems to find a certain pleasure in the paradoxical
contrast between Spinoza's supposed impious doctrines and
his moral life. ' II renversait tous les principes de la morale,
en etant lui-meme d'une vertu rigide.' Again, he speaks of
Me sophiste geometrique Spinosa, dont la moderation, le
desinteressement, et la generosite ont ete dignes d'Epictete.'
Elsewhere Spinoza is used by Voltaire as an example of
virtue apart from belief in supernatural dogmas. The
mixture of personal generosity with philosophical narrowness
in Voltaire's estimate is at first sight strange, but ceases to
be so when we bear in mind that the form of pure theism
strongly and even vehemently maintained by Voltaire made
him a champion of natural theology and final causes. The
* Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' where Spinoza's opinions on
these points are not developed, seems to have been read by
Voltaire with attention and something like approval ; at least
; his expressions of dissent are of the most faint and formal
I kind, and coupled with marked and specific praise.1 As to

1 Ldtre sitr Spinosa, in Melanges Ltittraires : ' Get ouvrage est tres-profond

c c 2

383 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

the 'Opera Posthuma,' Voltaire had probably not read them ;
he calls Spinoza's Latin dry, obscure, even bad ; and when
he wants to discuss Spinoza's metaphysics he quotes from
the so-called refutation by the Count de Boulainvilliers.

This work is curious enough to deserve special mention,
and may be introduced by Voltaire's significant remark that
under the title of ' Refutation of Spinoza ' Boulainvilliers
gave the poison and forgot to give the antidote. The book
is a popular exposition of the f Ethics,' in which little is pre
served of the arrangement or the language of the original.
Some passages appear to be inserted from the ' De Intellectus
Emendatione,' and occasionally we meet with terms and lines,
of argument which are not in Spinoza at all. It was not
published till after Boulainvilliers' death ; but he left with
it an apologetic preface which thinly disguises the real pur
pose. He professes to have met with the ( Opera Posthuma '
quite by accident, and bought the book for the sake of the
Hebrew grammar : then, he says, having nothing else to do
in the country, he made acquaintance with the philosophical
writings, and, thinking it of high importance that, they should
be properly refuted, conceived the plan of expounding their
contents in a more generally intelligible form : ' afin que le
systeme rendu dans une langue commune, et reduit a des
expressions ordinaires, put etre en etat d'exciter une indig
nation pareille a la mienne, et procurer, par ce moyen, de
veritables ennemis a de si pernicieux principes.' The volume
also contains, I presume to save appearances, reprints and
extracts of sundry controversial publications relating to Spi
noza and Spinozism. It further includes the life of Spinoza
by Colerus, with large interpolations from the untrustworthy
work of Lucas, which Boulainvilliers knew only in manu
script. In that form Lucas's biography appears to have had
some .currency in freethinking society on the Continent,

et le meilleur qu'il ait fait ; j 'en conclamne sans doute les sentimens, maisjene
puis m'empecher d'en estimer 1'erudition,' &c.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 389

and it oddly enough became associated with a certain
' Traite des trois imposteurs,' which occurs together with
Lucas, and also alone, under the title ' L'Esprit de Monsieur
Benoit de Spinoza,' or ' L'Esprit de Spinoza.' l As for this
last-mentioned production, it has nothing whatever to do with
Spinoza, nor yet is it a translation of the Latin book ' De
tribus impostoribus,' of which the true date and origin have
long been a standing puzzle of bibliographers. For us the only
interest of it is that the circumstances show Spinoza's name
to have become a sort of catch-word for anti-theological as
well as theological polemics, and with about equal ignorance
on both sides of what his philosophy really was.

It would be difficult to say to what extent Spinoza may
have been read in a more judicial spirit by people who
kept themselves clear of polemics altogether. Montesquieu,
having ventured to treat historical and political problems in
a scientific manner, was accused as a matter of course of Spi-
nozism. He had no difficulty in showing that the charge
was absurd.2 There is pretty strong internal evidence, how
ever, that Montesquieu had read the * Opera Posthuma ; ' not
in his great work indeed, but in the ' Lettres Persanes,' a place
at first sight less likely. In the fifty-ninth Letter the follow
ing sentence occurs : ' On a dit fort bien que, si les triangles
faisoient un dieu, ils lui donneroient trois cotes.' This ap
pears to be an unmistakable allusion to a passage we have
already quoted in a former chapter from Spinoza's letters.3
For the rest, the ' Lettres Persanes ' are much less guarded
in other respects than the ' Esprit des Lois.' To discuss
what they entitle us to conclude as to Montesquieu's real
opinions would take us too far.

1 MSS. in the Royal Library at the Hague. The combination had been
printed in 1719, but was shortly afterwards called in. See Van der Lmde,

•Bibliogr. nos. 99-104. The MSS. are in neat French handwriting of the first
half of the eighteenth century. There is another in the British Museum. See
Introduction for more detail.

2 Defense de F Esprit des Lois, ad init. 3 P. 63, above.

390 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

While Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists were still at the
head of European thought, and happy in the conviction that
Spinoza might be left alone as an enthusiast who had the
personal merit of being a virtuous heretic and odious to
orthodox authorities, but was philosophically quite hopeless,
the movement had begun in Germany, as yet unobserved,
which was to restore him to his true place. If a date is to be
fixed for the birth of modern Spinozism, it must be Lessing's
conversation with Jacobi in 1780. But many years before that
time Lessing had been in correspondence with Moses Mendels
sohn about Spinoza, and, what is of more importance, had
thoroughly assimilated Spinoza's ideas and used them in his
own work. Still earlier he had written thus of Mendelssohn,
then quite a young man, to another friend : 'His sincerity and
philosophic turn of mind make me look on him as one that
will be a second Spinoza. To make him altogether like the first
nothing but his errors will be wanting.' * It is clear that
Lessing had carefully studied Spinoza, and understood him
better than many later philosophers and critics ; it is also
clear that Lessing never fully accepted Spinoza's point of
view as applicable to the theory of human nature and the
conduct of life. Not only do the words just quoted show this,
but it appears from Lessing's statement and indications of
his own philosophical opinions, unsystematic as they are.
There were points on which he came nearer to Leibnitz.
But his intellectual sympathies were all with Spinoza, both as
against the common orthodox denunciation and as against
the half-intelligent criticism of the free-thinking French
school. A man thus disposed, and standing at the head of
German literature, if indeed he may not be called the founder
of modern German culture, was eminently fitted to render to
Spinoza's memory the justice that had been so long delayed.

1 Letters to J. D. Michaelis, Oct. 16, 1754 ; to Mendelssohn, April 17, 1763.'
Cp. Dr. Karl Rehorn, G. E. Lessing's Stellung znr Philosophic dcs Spinoza,
Frankfurt-am-Main, 1877; J. Sime, Lessing vol. ii, p. 296, &c.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 391

It was not done, it is true, by openly preaching Spinoza's
merits. That was left by Lessing to the coming generation
who had learnt from him ; and he taught them much better
than he would have done by direct preaching. It is but one
example, if I mistake not, of the characteristic method of his
work.

After Lessing's death a discussion arose between Jacobi
and Moses Mendelssohn as to what Lessing's opinions had
been. Mendelssohn was preparing a memoir of Lessing, and
Jacobi communicated to him, as a matter of interest he might
perhaps not know, that Lessing had been a Spinozist. Men
delssohn declined to accept the statement, and there ensued
a correspondence, long, desultory, and now sufficiently tedious
to follow, which ended in a personal controversy. The part of
it which is still interesting is Jacobi's account of his talk with
Lessing about Spinoza. He wrote it down for Mendelssohn,
apparently from memory, three years after it took place : but
the impression it had made was obviously deep, and his
report may be taken as in substance correct. It was on the
5th of July, 1780, that Jacobi paid a long desired visit to
Lessing : they talked much and of many things, and the next
morning they fell into more talk over Goethe's ' Prometheus,'
which Jacobi had with him, and Lessing saw for the first
time. ' You have shocked so many people,' said Jacobi as he
gave it him to read, * that you may as well be shocked for once
yourself.' ' Not at all/ replied Lessing after reading the lines :
' I know all that at first hand.' Let us interpose a warning
before we follow up the dialogue as given in dramatic form
by Jacobi. Judicious readers have before now observed that
Lessing seems to have had a mind to disport himself with
Jacobi, to put things paradoxically, to shock him a little, and
never to let him fully see if he were serious or not. Jacobi,
however, took it all seriously and solemnly. The conversa
tion proceeds thus : —

Jacobi. You know the poem?

392 SPINOZA; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Lessing. I never read the poem before, but I like it.

Jacobi. So do I in its way, or I would not have shown it you.

Lessing. That is not what I mean. The point of view of that
poem is my own. The orthodox conceptions of Deity will do no
longer for me ; I cannot stomach them ; \v KCU TTUV — I know no more
than that. Such is the drift of this poem too ; and I am free to con
fess it is much to my mind.

JacoM. Why, that makes you pretty much in accord with Spinoza.

Lessing. If I am to call myself after any master, I know of no
other.

Jacobi. Spinoza is good enough for me : but 'tis a sorry kind of
salvation one can find in his name.

Lessing. Well, so be it. But, after all, do you know of any
better ?

Before Jacobi had time to recover from his astonishment,
they were interrupted. Lessing renewed the conversation
the next morning. Jacobi explained that he had rather
hoped to get some help against Spinoza from Lessing.

Lessi?ig. Then it seems you know him.

Jacobi. I think I know him as very few can have done.

Lessing. Then there is no help for you : you had better make
friends with him for good and all. There is no other philosophy than
the philosophy of Spinoza.

Jacobi is then drawn into a pretty full exposition, Lessing
only putting in a stimulating question every now and then.
At one point Lessing suggests that the eminently respect
able Leibnitz was in truth a Spinozist. 'Do you mean
it seriously ? ' cries Jacobi. ' Do you doubt it seriously ? '
answers Lessing. Presently Jacobi comes back to the sug
gestion and develops it at some length.

Lessing. I shall leave you no peace till you come out with
that parallel— to think that people go on talking of Spinoza as if he
were a dead dog !

Jacobi. They would do just the same afterwards. To grasp
Spinoza requires a mental effort too long and too stubborn for them.
And no one has grasped him to whom a single line in the * Ethics ' has
remained obscure,

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 393

Notwithstanding this brave saying, Lessing appears to
have had his doubts whether Jacobi really understood
Spinoza, and modern critics have certainly not taken his
mastery of the ' Ethics ' at his own valuation. The general
purport of Jacobi's rather long-winded observations is that
Spinoza's philosophy is logically unanswerable but morally
unacceptable ; Spinozism, he says, is atheism. For practical
purposes he takes refuge in an act of faith, salto inortale as he
calls it in the conversation with Lessing, who with a certain
irony declined at his age to follow in any such adventures ;
being unable, he said, to trust his old limbs and heavy head
for such a leap.

The strife of Jacobi and Mendelssohn over Lessing's body
could not fail to concentrate attention on Spinoza and his
doctrines. Some notion of the effect that was produced
is given by Herder's preface to the second edition of his
dialogues on Spinoza's system, published in 1800. It is there
said that the edition might have been ready several years
earlier, but was delayed for various reasons. In particular,
Spinoza had become so popular (being taken up by some
even with extravagance) that an unpretending attempt to
remove the common misapprehensions about him seemed to
have lost its point.

'Since 1787, when these dialogues were first printed, much had
been changed in the philosophical outlook of Germany. The name
of Spinoza, which used to be mentioned with a shudder of abhorrence,
had since then risen so high with some persons that they could
never name it except for the disparagement of Leibnitz and other
excellent authors.'

We may take it, then, that some ten or twelve years after
Lessing's death the tone of educated German society with
regard to Spinoza had undergone a complete change.
Herder's dialogues themselves give a version of Spinoza's
doctrine, or rather of what it might have been, which may be
described as a sort of idealized naturalism, Their general aim

394 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

is curiously like that of some writers of our own day who,
accepting the theory of evolution as established by science,
but not content with its purely scientific aspect, have en
deavoured to make it the vehicle of new and refined forms of
teleology. Some of Herder's points and phrases might still be
found suggestive.1 The general tendency of his reading of
Spinoza is thus opposed to Jacobi's, and not unlike that which
has on the whole prevailed among later German critics. An
undercurrent of anti-Kantian polemic is traceable in many
parts of the dialogues.

Kant himself was unaffected by the rising influence of
Spinoza. Either he never considered Spinoza seriously, or he
came to the consideration of him too late. What mention
there is of Spinoza in Kant's philosophical writings is but
slight and occasional. In one place he is criticized on the
one point of final causes, but not lucidly or adequately.2 The
reader of Kant may indeed find here and there curious ap
proximations to Spinoza's lines of thought. One such has
been pointed out in a former chapter. But these are on the
face of them accidental ; they are such that if Spinoza's corre
sponding work had been present to Kant's mind the resem
blance must have been less or more. It is hardly needful to
add that Kant's way of approaching the problems of philo
sophy is entirely different from Spinoza's. Only the genera
tion succeeding Kant felt the full power of the revived
Spinozism in philosophy ; for the time its work was more in
the semi-philosophical regions of literature and poetry. Les-
sing's mantle fell in a great measure upon Goethe ; and for

1 For example, he meets the objection that Spinoza does not account for the
individuality of things by saying that when Spinoza is rightly understood this is
a specially strong point in his system. The principium individuationis is iden
tified with life, and is capable of degrees which depend on the degree of organiza
tion attained. <Je mehr Leben und Wirklichkeit, d. i. je eine verstandigere,
machtigere, vollkommnere Energie ein Wesen zur Erhaltung eines Ganzen hat,
das es sich angehorig fiihlt, dem es sich innig und ganz mittheilet, desto mehr ist
es Individuum, Selbst.'

2 Kritik der Urtheilskraftt § 73.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 395

Goethe, as for Lessing, Spinoza was a living and eloquent
guide. By Goethe even more richly and variously than by
Lessing the ideas put forth by Spinoza were refashioned in less
technical forms, endowed with new life, and spread abroad
among the educated public. Goethe too, like Lessing, was
not altogether in speculative agreement with Spinoza, but
nevertheless assimilated and used him. The direct, one may
indeed say decisive, influence of Spinoza on his mind — for
it is his own word — is no matter of conjecture : it is told by
Goethe himself, He had long sought unsatisfied for guidance
and sustenance ; at last he came on the ' Ethics ' of Spinoza,
and there found something he could repose in.

' What the book may have given to me, or what I may have
put into it of my own, it is impossible for me to say : enough that I
found here that which stilled the emotions : a wide and free prospect
over the physical and moral world disclosed itself before me. But
what chiefly drew me to Spinoza was the boundless unselfishness
that shone forth in every sentence. That marvellous saying : ' Whoso
truly loves God must not expect God to love him in return,' with all
the propositions that support it, all the consequences that flow from it,
was the burden of all my thoughts. To be unselfish in everything,
most of all in love and friendship, was my highest pleasure, my rule
of life, my exercise, so that my foolhardy saying of a later time, If I
love you, what is that to you ? — was truly felt by me when I wrote it.
I must not forget to acknowledge in this case as in others the truth
that the closest unions are the result of contrast. The serene level
of Spinoza stood out against my striving endeavour in all directions ;
his mathematical method was the complement of my poetical way
of observation and description, and his formal treatment, which some
could not think appropriate to moral subjects, was just what made
me learn from him with eagerness and admire him without reserve.'

In another passage, less quoted but not less remarkable,
Goethe tells how the sight of an old attack on Spinoza (it
seems to have been Kortholt's 'De tribus impostoribus
magnis') led him to take up the 'Opera Posthuma' again,
after a long interval. He well remembered the effect of
the first reading, and this time again he seemed to attain an

396 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

extraordinary clearness of intellectual vision.1 He goes on to
say what was the lesson he found in Spinoza. The whole of
our education and experience bids us to renounce and resign :
' Dass wir entsagen sollen.' The problem of man's life is to
reconcile himself to this. One ready way is the superficial
way of the many, to proclaim that all things are vanity. But
the path of wisdom, sought only by a few, is to cut short the
pains of resignation in detail by a resignation once for all ; to
rest one's mind on that which is eternal, necessary, and uni
form, and possess ideas which remain undisturbed by the
contemplation of a transitory world. This was the secret of
Spinoza for Goethe. Not that he ever assented in detail to
the letter of his doctrine. He knew too well how difficult
it is for one man to enter into another's thoughts, how
easy misunderstandings are, even to flatter himself that he
thoroughly understood Spinoza. For some time he meant
to introduce a visit to Spinoza into his unfinished poem on
the Wandering Jew. The scene was much thought over, but
never written.

Against Jacobi's reading of the Ethics Goethe protested in
emphatic language. ' My own way of looking at nature/ he
wrote, ' is not Spinoza's ; but if I had to name the book that
of all I know agrees best with my view, I could only name
the Ethics. I hold more and more firmly to worshipping
God with this so-called atheist, and gladly leave to you
and your allies everything to which you give, as you needs '
must, the name of religion.' He returned again and again
to Spinoza for spiritual light and strength, and the ' Ethics '
continued to be the companion of his old age.

But, though Goethe's purpose of paying an express
poetical tribute to Spinoza was not executed, the place
filled by Spinoza in his thoughts makes itself known in his

1 ' Ich ergab mich dieser Lektiire und glaubte, indem ichin mich selbst schaute,
die Welt niemals so deutlich erblickt zu haben. ' — Aus meinem Leben, book xvi.
ad init. The passage above translated is towards the end of book xiv.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 397

writings in manifold ways. In dramatic and lyrical poetry,
in romance and in proverbs, in ' Faust ' and in epigrams, the
same presence meets us. In fact Spinozism is so widely
spread and pervading an element in Goethe's works, that for
that very reason it is useless to give specific instances : if one
were to begin, one would be launched into a commentary on
Goethe. The series of poems entitled ' Gott und Welt ' may
be referred to as showing Goethe's speculative tendencies in a
concentrated form. It was Lessing and Goethe more than
the philosophers by profession who secured the place of
Spinoza in modern German thought and literature. The
work of tracing his influence and recognition down to the
present time would need a monograph to itself. Novalis,
Schleiermacher, and Heine may be mentioned as leading
names among those who from divers quarters and on divers
occasions have celebrated Spinoza's memory. Heine in
particular has given to Spinoza some of his most charming
pages. More lately, a thorough philosophic study of Spinoza
has, in one remarkable instance, been united with great powers
of literary expression. Auerbach, the translator of Spinoza's
works, also stands in the first rank of German novelists,
One book (' Spinoza, ein Denkerleben ') he has given expressly
to a story of Spinoza's early life, in which the outlines of fact
we possess are filled in by a skilled and sympathetic hand.
For those who can read German, but fear to attack technical
works on philosophy, there can be no better introduction to
Spinoza. More than this, Auerbach's other work is full of
Spinozism ; and at least one of his books carries on the face
of it the purpose of showing the value of Spinoza's philosophy
as a working view of life,

In philosophy Spinozism, to which Kant remained a
stranger, was largely taken up by his successors. Fichte's
teaching is widely different from Spinoza's in its method and
conclusions, but it is evident that he had studied Spinoza and
felt his power. Some of Fichte's metaphysical interpretations

398 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

of theology have all the appearance of being taken from
Spinoza with but little alteration. We find in him also a
short criticism on Spinoza's theory of Substance.1 Hegel and
Schelling were more explicit. They both spoke of Spinoza
with high admiration. To be a philosopher you must first
be a Spinozist; if you have not Spinozism you have no
philosophy at all : such were Hegel's repeated sayings. To
the same effect Schelling said that no one can attain true
and full knowledge in philosophy who has not at least once
plunged into the depth of Spinozism. But when Schelling
and Hegel had occasion, in expounding their own systems, to
show how much they had improved on Spinoza, they not only
became critical, but their criticism was hardly respectful.
Hegel even allowed himself a bad pun on the manner of
Spinoza's death.2 Their chief objection to Spinoza's philo
sophy, so far as it can be made briefly intelligible, is that his
system of the world is lifeless, rigid, motionless. Schelling
compares it to Pygmalion's statue before life had been
breathed into it. Nevertheless it is admitted that Spinoza
was the founder of modern philosophy ; and this has been
confirmed by the general voice of German criticism ever
since. The continuance of philosophical interest in Spinoza
among German thinkers down to this time is sufficiently
shown by the amount of discussion which has been specially
given to him. One school, indeed, which just now is popular,
regards Spinoza with considerably less favour. This is the
school of Pessimism, founded on the brilliant extravagances of
Schopenhauer and the more methodical system of Hartmann.
Schopenhauer could not abide Spinoza, first, it would seem,
for being a Jew, and next for being an optimist ; the charge

) i. 121, ed. 1845. For resemblances see especially Rdigionslehre^
lote Vorlesung.

2 ' Abgrundder Subslanz ... in clem Alles nur dahin schwindet, alles Lei en
in sich seibst verkommt ; Spinoza ist selbst .an der Schwindsucht gestorben.'
Hegel's and Schelling's criticisms are collected and - discussed in C. von Orelli's
Sjinoscts Leben nnd Lchre, Aarau, 1850.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 399

of optimism being established by the simple assertion that
'pantheism is essentially and necessarily optimism.' Yet
Spinoza neither maintains that the universe as a whole is to
be called good or the best possible (for these with him are
purely relative conceptions), nor does he anywhere commit
himself to any opinion as to the actual balance of pain and
pleasure in the world. Schopenhauer does not trouble him
self with these distinctions. He makes an end of Spinoza in
three or four pages of dashing criticism, calls him an uncon
scious materialist, among other names, and goes out of his
way to cast a gross insult on Spinoza's race.1 Hartmann
deals with Spinoza much more soberly, neither vituperates
nor misrepresents him, and sometimes quotes him with
approval. But Spinoza's general habit of mind is of course
as entirely opposed to dogmatic pessimism as to dogmatic
optimism ; and those who find their philosophic satisfaction
in pessimism cannot be expected to have much sympathy
for him. On the other hand, this estrangement, whatever its
amount may be, seems likely to be compensated or more
than compensated by increased appreciation of Spinoza from
the scientific side. Miiller's testimony as to his account of
the passions has already been quoted. Even more important
is the striking likeness between Spinoza's results and those
reached in our time by workers who, like Wundt and Haeckel
in Germany, and Taine in France, have come to psychological
questions through physiology, or taken the equivalent precau
tion of informing their philosophic judgment with competent
physiological instruction. It may be safely affirmed, I think,
that Spinoza tends more and more to become the philosopher
of men of science.

The German restoration of Spinoza was yet new when
Coleridge, foremost in transplanting hither the fruits of the

1 Die Philosophic dtr Nciienn, in Fragmanle zitr Gcsch. dcr Philosophic (vol.
V. of works, ed. Frauenstadt). The almost incredible piece of bad taste referred
to, which I do not care to repeat, is on p. 78.

400 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

great revival of German culture, began to speak and write of
him in England. The immediate effect, it is true, was
nothing conspicuous; nevertheless the present appreciation
of Spinoza in this country must be ascribed to Coleridge more
than to any other one man. For the bulk of readers he spoke
in parables ; but (in this resembling Lessing) he did some
thing even better than teaching the public ; he taught their
teachers. His written and spoken words were treasured by a
select circle of those who formed the literature and literary
habits of the next generation. At one time he talked much
of Spinoza with Wordsworth, as we know from a droll anec
dote told by Coleridge himself. It was in the first fever of
the great war with France, when the minds of loyal subjects
were haunted by red spectres of Jacobin clubs and corre
sponding societies. Coleridge and Wordsworth were staying
peaceably enough in Somersetshire, with no manner of treason
in their thoughts. But at that time whoever was not a Tory
was held little better than a Jacobin, and they fell under sus
picion. The rest shall be told in Coleridge's own words.

1 The dark guesses of some zealous Quidnunc met with so con
genial a soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighbour
hood, that a spy was actually sent down from the government pour
surveillance of myself and friend. There must have been not only
abundance but variety of these " honourable men " at the disposal of
Ministers ; for this proved a very honest fellow. After three weeks'
truly Indian perseverance in tracking us (for we were commonly
together) during all which time seldom were we out of doors but he
contrived to be within hearing (and all the while utterly unsus
pected ; how indeed could such a suspicion enter our fancies ?) he
not only rejected Sir Dogberry's request that he would try yet a
little longer, but declared to him his belief that both my friend and
myself were as good subjects, for aught he could discover to the con
trary, as any in His Majesty's dominions. He had repeatedly hid him
self, he said, for hours together behind a bank at the sea-side (our
favourite seat) and overheard our conversation. At first he fancied
that we were aware of our danger ; for he often heard me talk of one
Spy Nozy, which he was inclined to interpret of himself, and of a

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 401

remarkable feature belonging to him ; but he was speedily convinced
that it was the name of a man who* had made a book and lived long
ago.'1

What Coleridge thought of Spinoza's importance as a
philosopher is to be gathered from various scattered notices.
A pencil note made by him in a copy of Schelling's philoso
phical works runs as follows :—

* I believe in my depth of being that the three great works since
the introduction of Christianity are — Bacon's " Novum Organum," and
his other works, so far as they are commentaries on it ; Spinoza's
" Ethics," with his letters and other pieces, as far as they are comments
on his Ethics ; and Kant's " Critique of the Pure Reason," and his
other works as commentaries on and applications of the same.'2

At the same time Coleridge was neither a Spinozist nor a
Kantian. His position as regards Spinoza was not altogether
unlike Jacobi's, though he would never have expressed him
self so crudely as Jacobi did on the consequences of the
system. While he admired Spinoza both intellectually and
morally, he could not fully accept his way of thinking.
Even at a time when he was all but convinced by Spinoza,
he was not satisfied. * For a very long time, indeed/ he
writes, '-I could not reconcile personality with infinity ; and
my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained
with Paul- and John.' 3 Crabb Robinson tells in his Diary 4 of
an interview with Coleridge at which he spoke of the ' Ethics '
as a book that was a gospel to him, explaining at the same
time that he nevertheless thought Spinoza's philosophy false.
' Spinoza's system has been demonstrated to be false, but only
-by that philosophy which has demonstrated the falsehood of
all other philosophies. Did philosophy commence with an it
is instead of an / am, Spinoza would be altogether true.'
But somehow this particular utterance of Coleridge's does
not seem quite so genuine as the others. It is difficult to think

' Biographia Literaria, ch. x. 2 lb.t note 17 to ch. ix. ed. 1847.

Ib. ch. x. 4 Vol. i. p. 208, 3rd ed.

D D

402 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

the little scene reported by Crabb Robinson altogether free
from affectation. There is a touch of deliberate display in
Coleridge's kissing the frontispiece of the ' Opera Posthuma ; '
it is almost theatrical. The occasion was his borrowing the
book of Crabb Robinson. Had he then no copy of his own ?
However, there can be no doubt that Coleridge's feeling
about Spinoza was in itself deep and constant. We may be
sure that when he spoke of him to Wordsworth, it was with
earnestness and eloquence. And this, when we consider
Wordsworth's position in English literature, is a matter not
without importance. It seems not too fanciful to suppose
that Coleridge's expositions of Spinoza may have counted for
something in the speculative strain that runs through so much
of Wordsworth's works, and thence, at one more remove, in the
study and reverence of nature which most cultivated persons
now accept as a matter of course, but which in Wordsworth's
time was new, and to not a few of his critics appeared
ridiculous. The impulse of artistic nature-worship, derived
mainly from Wordsworth, has been the source, in one way or
another, of nearly everything that has had real life and power
in the English art and poetry of this century. Let it not be
supposed that in saying this we claim Wordsworth as a
Spinozist. The views of man and the world more or less
systematically expressed by him are wholly different from
Spinoza's, though it would not be difficult to find apparent
parallels in detail ; l and on the other hand, there are only the
slightest hints in Spinoza himself of the possible artistic
bearings of Spinozism. But here we are considering not
opinions or propositions which can be followed or discarded,
nor even an intellectual habit, but an aesthetic temper which
may be induced in imaginative minds by contact with forms
and systems of thought aiming in the first instance at quite
other ends. This kind of influence is consistent with indif-

1 Compare, for instance, Spinoza's 'ornnia, diversis tainen gradibus, animata
sunt,' with Wordsworth's Lines written in Early Spring.

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 403

ference or even opposition in other regions. And, whatever
may be thought of the influence on Wordsworth of Coleridge's
modified Spinozism, it is certain that Coleridge and Words
worth, above all others, so transformed the intellectual at
mosphere of England as to make it possible that Spinoza
should in due time be studied with care and intelligence even
by those who did not go with him in his conclusions.

Another foremost poet of that time is now known to have
been an eager student of the ' Tractatus Theologico-politicus,'
if not of the metaphysical part of Spinoza's work. A quota
tion from the Tractatus appears in the notes to the original
edition of Shelley's ' Queen Mab/ and he began an English
translation of it. A. fragment of the MS. came by some
means into the hands of Mr. C. S. Middleton, the author
of a book on ' Shelley and his Writings ' (London, 1858). Mr.
Middleton took this for an original work of Shelley's, one of
the ' school-boy speculations alluded to by Medwin/ and con
sidered it ' too crude for publication entire ' ! 1 In the winter
of 1821-2 Shelley was at work on this translation, and ob
tained a promise from Byron to write a life of Spinoza by
way of preface to it.2 The ' Tractatus Theologico-politicus '
translated by Shelley and introduced by Byron would have
been a striking addition to the philosophizing of poets. But
the plan was soon cut short by Shelley's death ; and though
he seems to have made some way in the translation, none of
it has been found, save the fragment above mentioned (perhaps
a rough draft), which he had probably left with other papers
in England,

Nearly half a century passed from the time when

1 The true source of the fragment way pointed out by Mr. J. Oxenford. Mr.
Middleton, in acknowledging the correction, suggested that Shelley had used not
Spinoza's Latin, but a French version (Athenaeum, Jan.-June, 1858, pp. 211-243).
But Shelley cites the Latin in his notes to Queen Mab ; and I find his English
distinctly nearer to the Latin than to the old French translation of 1678, the only
one then in existence.

2 See Introduction, p. xx.

D D 2

404 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Coleridge was overheard talking of the mysterious ' Spy
Nozy' before Spinoza was taken up in a serious way by
English philosophical criticism. Among the first to draw
attention to him were two men of extremely different habits
of thought, F. D. Maurice and G. H. Lewes. They ap
proached Spinoza from their diverse points of view, the one
holding a transcendental philosophy which almost merged in
theology, the other thinking (at least when he first wrote of
Spinoza) that philosophy was impossible. They naturally
criticized Spinoza's system on widely different grounds ; but
they nevertheless agreed in something really more important,
for they vied with one another in appreciating his moral and
intellectual grandeur. Lewes's work on this subject ranges
over a long time, and in its latest form is still recent ; many
English readers must owe to it their first conception of
Spinoza's worth, and have been determined by it to study
him at first hand. Two English writers who are still living,
and distinguished in other fields of literature, Mr. Matthew
Arnold and Mr. Froude, have made brilliant contributions to
the knowledge of Spinoza in this country. But as to Mr.
Arnold's essay on the ' Tractatus Theologico-politicus,' I
find one serious ground of complaint, that he has not written
another on the ' Ethics.'

In France the study of Spinoza was taken up from
Germany by the school of philosophical criticism of which •
Victor Cousin was the chief. The tendency of the school
was hostile to Spinoza's philosophy and all ways of thinking
allied to it, and remains so to this day so far as its traditions
have been kept up. Nothing else could be expected from
a philosophy which was in effect a revival of French Car-
tesianism and was proud of its ancestry. But if Spinoza met
with little sympathy from French philosophers of the official
school— which, as a school, may be now considered extinct-
he met with careful discussion, The introduction to Saisset's
translation of his works is about the best adverse criticism of

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 405

Spinoza with which I am acquainted. More lately Spinoza
has been handled by M. Paul Janet in the candid and im
partial spirit of the scientific historian, and by M. Renan
with delicate insight and sympathy, and the eloquence of
which he is an unrivalled master. Meanwhile philosophy is
being more and more followed in France, as well as elsewhere,
in a spirit of disinterested earnestness and with a faithfulness
to scientific method of which much may be expected in no
distant future. In this movement there is yet another assur
ance that Spinoza will not fail to receive his due from the
best and most vigorous thought of modern France.

M. Taine, who stands at the head of the French scientific
school, has given in his principal work, ' De 1'Intelligence,' a
discussion of the relations of mind and matter which is
thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of Spinoza's doctrine.
I refer especially to his development of the thesis, ' la nature
a deux faces/ where the coincidence is complete, or all but
complete.1

Turning our eyes, again to Spinoza's own land, we find in
the last twenty years a revival of interest in him which,
though late in its beginning, has already obtained consider
able importance. The way was led by Dr. van Vloten, to
whom is due the first publication of Spinoza's ' Essay of God
and Man,' and of several letters and parts of letters which had
been withheld by the original editors of the 'Opera Posthuma.'
Other scholars and critics have followed him with good effect,
and the two-hundredth anniversary of Spinoza's death, which
fell in 1877, gave occasion for a sort of concentration of their
activity. It was decided to invite subscriptions from all
civilized countries in order to erect a statue of Spinoza at the
Hague, in sight of the spot where he passed the latter years
of his life. This project could not be carried out in time
for the anniversary itself, which was nevertheless fitly
celebrated, M. Renan contributing a discourse of which

1 De r Intelligence, Part I. Bk. 4, ch. ii., and Part II. Bk. 2, ch. i.

406 SPINOZA ; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.

something has already been said. At the same time Pro
fessor Land of Leyden gave a special lecture on Spinoza's
philosophy in the regular academic course, which has been
printed with illustrative and critical notes, and in this
form constitutes one of the most valuable monographs we
now possess on the subject. Altogether, Spinoza has fared
better in his own country in the last few years than he ever
did before. Neither has reaction been wanting to prove the
solidity of the movement, if more proof were needed. There
was a pretty sharp recrudescence among orthodox journal
ists, critics, and theologians of the old polemic against
Spinoza. Some of these criticisms were able and digni
fied, but the greater part copied with little alteration the
violence and ignorance exhibited by their predecessors two
centuries ago. I had the advantage of seeing a set of
articles from a certain Flemish ultramontane journal, which
not only pronounced Spinoza a second-rate sophist, but
would not allow M. Renan to be capable of writing French.
His style was gravely described as ' flasque et enerve.'
It would be difficult to decide whether this remarkable judg
ment proceeded from the imbecility of impotent rage, or from
the impudence of a dogmatist assured that his audience
would accept anything.

However, the plan formed by a committee of Dutch
scholars to do honour to Spinoza in his dwelling-place met
with no serious obstacle beyond a certain amount of un
avoidable delay. Subscriptions came in gradually indeed,
but in sufficient amount to ensure ultimate success ; and it is
worth noting that, next to the Netherlands, Great Britain
bore the chief part in this work. But of the designs for a
statue which were furnished by several competitors, that of
M. Frederic Hexamer, a young Parisian sculptor, was chosen
by the Committee. The bronze casting was completed in
the course of the present year, and on September 14 the
monument was unveiled and handed over to the municipal

SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT. 4c7

authorities of the Hague. Meanwhile, by a happy coinci
dence, the house in the Paviljoensgracht where Spinoza
lodged had been identified beyond doubt, though the
fabric has been rebuilt since his time. The spot is now
marked by a tablet let into the wall, and inscribed with a
short record. But a word must be said of M. Hexamer's
work : it presents the philosopher in a siting posture, his
head bending down on one hand as if making a pause in his
writing to think over some new question. The figure, as
befits the subject, is dignified, not by idealised features or
any conventional pose, but simply by being natural and
unaffected. The pedestal bears for all inscription the one
word : SPINOZA. This is as it should be, for thus the be
holder has no particular gloss on Spinoza's teaching thrust
upon him, and may rest undisturbed in that way of regarding
Spinoza's worth which suits him best. Thus, too, it is made
manifest, as was from the first the earnest desire of all con
cerned, that the homage paid to Spinoza is not that of any
particular school or sect. There have appeared as fellow-
workers in this cause men whose general philosophical
opinions, whose readings of Spinoza's doctrine, and whose
estimate of its value as a finished system of thought, are
widely different. For like reasons the assistance of students
of philosophy in other lands was invited, not so much in
the hope of obtaining large contributions as for the sake
of showing that Spinoza's fame belongs not to one country,
but to every place where men are found to think seriously
on the deepest problems of life. The names of men illus
trious in philosophy and literature in England, France, and
Germany, men otherwise separated from one another in their
occupations, pursuits, and beliefs, were inscribed side by side
on the roll of supporters. And thus the nature and the
power of Spinoza's work are most fitly symbolized ; thus he
would himself have desired to be commemorated. His aim
was not to leave behind him disciples pledged to the letter of

4o8 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. '

his teaching, but to lead men to think with him by teaching
them to think freely and rightly for themselves. We said at
the beginning of this chapter that Spinozism, as a living and
constructive force, is not a system but a habit of mind. And,
as science makes it plainer every day that there is no such
thing as a fixed equilibrium either in the world without or in
the mind within, so it becomes plain that the genuine and
durable triumphs of philosophy are not in systems but in ideas.
Wealth in vital ideas is the real test of a philosopher's great
ness, and by this test the name of Spinoza stands assured of
its rank among the greatest. We who have thus far en
deavoured, however imperfectly, to follow the working of
Spinoza's mind, and to explain his thoughts in the language of
our own time, honour him even more for that which he sug
gested, seeing the far-off dawn of new truths as in a vision,
than for that which his hands made perfect. Not even from
those whom we most reverence can we accept any system as
final. A speculative system is a work of art ; it is an attempt
to fix an ideal, and in the very act of thought which marks it
off with individual form the ideal is transformed and drawn
up into a still unexplored region. Experience and science
combine to warn us against putting our faith in symbols which
should be but aids to thought. The word that lived on the
master's lips becomes a dead catchword in the mouth of
scholars who have learnt only half his lesson. And therefore
it will still be in time to come that when men of impatient
mind cry out for systems and formulas, demanding to possess
the secret of all wisdom once for all, there will be no better
answer for them than was given long ago by the son of
Sirach : The first man knew her not perfectly ; no more shall
the last find her out. For her thoughts are more than the sea,
and her counsels prof ounder than the great deep.

APPENDIX A.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.

BY COLERUS.

The English version of Colerus is an indifferently printed small octavo
of 92 pages. I do not know that it has ever been reprinted. In the present
reprint obvious errors and misprints in English words, such as absur'd for
absurd, Jugdment, Preson, for Judgment, Person, and the like, as well as
obvious errors of the press in punctuation, have been tacitly corrected ; but all
genuine peculiarities of spelling, punctuation, &c., have been preserved, even
to such blunders as essensnally for essentially. These things belong to the
character of the time no less than the style of the writing itself.

Another little book, entitled < An Account of the Life and Writings of
Spinosa' &c. (London, 1720, 8vo. Bibliogr. no. 105) is a servile abridgment of
this translation, pp. 1-27, followed by an epitome of the Tractatus Theologico-
politicus, pp. 28-96.

THE

LIFE

BENEDICT

S P I N O S A.

Written by John Colerus, Minister

of the Lutheran Church, at the

Hague.

Done out of French.

LONDON.

Printed by D. L. And Sold by Benj. Bragg,
at the Raven in Pater-Nosier Row, 1706.

THE

LIFE

OF
B. D e S p in o s a.

, that Philosopher, whose name makes so great noise in
the World, was originally a Jew. His parents, a little while
after his birth, named him Baruch. But having afterwards forsaken
Judaism, he changed his Name, and call'd himself Benedict in his
Writings, and in the Letters which he subscrib'd. He was Born at
Amsterdam the 24th of November ; in the Year 1632. What is com
monly said, that he was Poor and of a very mean Extraction, is not
true. His Father, a Portuguese Jew, was in very good Circumstances,
and a Merchant at Amsterdam, where he lived upon the Burgwal, in
a good House near the Old Portuguese Synagogue. Besides, his civil
and handsome behaviour, his Relations, who lived at ease, and what
was left to him by his Father and Mother, prove that his Extraction,
as well as his Education, was above that of the Common People.
Samuel Careens, a Portuguese Jew, married the Youngest of his two
Sisters. The name of the Eldest was Rebeckah, and that of the
Youngest Miriam, whose Son Daniel Career is, Nephew to Benedict
de Spinosa, declared himself one of his Heirs after his Decease : As it
appears by an Act past before Libertus Loef, a Notary, the 3oth of
March 1677, m the form of a Procuration directed to Henry Vander
Spyck, in whose House Spinosa Lodged when he died.

Spinosa's first Studies.

Spinosa shewed from his Childhood, and in his younger years,
that Nature had not been unkind to him. His quick fancy, and his
ready and penetrating Wit were easily perceived. Because he had a
great Mind to learn the Latin Tongue, they gave him at first a
German Master. But afterwards in order to perfect himself in that

414 APPENDIX.

Language, he made use of the famous Francis Vanden Ende, who
taught it then in Amsterdam, and practis'd Physick at the same time :
That Man taught with good Success and a great Reputation ; so that
the Richest Merchants of that City intrusted him with the instruction
of their Children, before they had found out that he taught his
Scholars something else besides Latin. For it was discovered at
last, that he sowed the first Seeds of Atheism in the Minds of those
Young Boys. This is a matter of fact, which I coujd prove, if there
was any necessity for it, by the Testimony of several honest Gentle
men, who are still living, and some of whom have been Elders of the
Lutheran Church at Amsterdam. Those good men bless every day
the Memory of their Parents, who took care in due time to remove
them from the School of so pernicious and so impious a Master.

Vanden Ende had an only Daughter, who understood the Latin
Tongue, as well as Musick, so perfectly, that she was able to teach
her Fathers Scholars in his absence. Spinosa having often occasion
to see and speak to her, grew in Love with her, and he has often
confest that he design'd to marry her. She was none of the most
Beautiful, but she had a great deal of Wit, a great Capacity and a
jovial Humour, which wrought upon the Heart of Spinosa, as well as
upon another Scholar of Vanden Ende, whose name was Kerkering, a
Native of Hamburgh, The latter did soon perceive that he had a
Rival, and grew Jealous of him. This moved him to redouble his
care, and his attendance upon his Mistress : which he did with good
success : But a Neck-lace of Pearls, of the value of two or three
hundred Pistoles, which he had before presented to that Young
Woman, did without doubt contribute to win her Affection. She
therefore promised to Marry him : Which she did faithfully perform,
when the Sieur Kerkering had abjured the Lutheran Religion, which
he profest, and embraced the Roman Catholick. See the preface of
Kortholt de tribus Impostoribus, of the 2nd Edition.

As for Vanden Ende, being too well known in Holland, to find
any Employment there, he was obliged to look for it somewhere else.
He went into France, where he had a Tragical end, after he had
maintained himself for some years with what he got by practising
Physick. Some say that he was Condemn'd to be hanged, and
Executed, for having attempted upon the Dauphin's Life ; but others,
who knew him particularly in France, own indeed that he was hanged,
but they give another reason for it. They say that Vanden Ende
endeavour'd to cause an Insurrection in one of the Provinces of
France^ the Inhabitants whereof hoped by that means to be restored

APPENDIX. 415

to their Ancient Priviledges ; and that he designed thereby to free
the United Provinces from the oppression they were under, by
giving so much work to the King of France in his own Country, as
to oblige him to keep a great part of his Forces in that Kingdom.
That in order to facilitate the Execution of that design, some Ships
were fitted out, but that they arrived too late. However it be, Van-
den Ende was executed, but if he had attempted upon the Dauphin's
Life, 'tis likely that he wou'd have expiated his crime in another
manner, and by a more rigorous Punishment.

He applies Himself to the Study of Divinity, and then to
I Natural Philosophy.

Spinosa having learn'd the Latin Tongue well, applied him
self to the Study of Divinity for some years. In the mean time
his Wit and Judgment encreased every day : So that finding himself
more disposed to enquire into Natural Causes, he gave over Divinity,
and betook himself altogether to the Study of Natural Philosophy.
He did for a long time deliberate about the choice he shou'd make
of a Master, whose Writing might serve him as a Guide in his design.
At last, having light upon the Works of Descartes, he read them
greedily; and afterwards he often declared that he had all his
Philosophical Knowledge from him. He was charmed with that
Maxim of Descartes, Which says, That nothing ought to be admitted as
True, but what has been proved by good and solid Reasons. From
whence he drew this Consequence, that the ridiculous Doctrine and
Principles of the Rabbins cou'd not be admitted by a Man of Sense ;
because they are only built upon the Authority of the Rabbins them
selves, and because what they teach, does not proceed from God,
as -they pretend without any ground for it, and without the least
appearance of Reason.

From that time he began to be very much reserved amongst the
Jewish Doctors, whom he shunned as much as he cou'd : He was
• seldom seen in their Synagogues, whither he went only perfunctorily,
which exasperated them against him to the highest degree ; for they
did not doubt but that he wou'd soon leave them, and make himself
a Christian. Yet, to speak the truth, he never embraced Christianity,
nor received the Holy Baptism : And tho he had frequent conversa
tions with some learn'd Mennonites, as well as with the most emmen
Divines of other Christian Sects, yet he never declared for, nor
profest himself to be a Member of any of them.

416 APPENDIX.

Francis Halma says, in the Account of Spinosa, which he
published in Dutch? that the Jews offered him a Pension a little
while before his Desertion, to engage him to remain amongst 'em, and
to appear now and then in their Synagogues. This Spinosa himself
affirmed several times to the Sieur Vander Spyck, his Landlord, and
to some other Persons ; adding, that the Pension, which the Rabbins
design'd to give him, amounted to 1000 Florins. But he protested
at the same time, that if they had offered him ten times as much, he
wou'd not have accepted of it, nor frequented their Assemblies out
of such a motive ; because he was not a Hypocrite, and minded
nothing but Truth. Monsieur Bayle tells us, That he happen'd one
day to be assaulted by a Jew, as he was coming out of the Play
house, who wounded him in the Face with a Knife, and that Spinosa
knew that the Jew design'd to kill him, tho his wound was not danger
ous. But Spinosa! s Landlord and his Wife, who are still living, give
me quite another account of it. They had it from Spinosa himself,
who did often tell them, that one evening as he was coming out of the
Old Portuguese Synagogue, he saw a Man by him with a Dagger in
his Hand ; whereupon standing upon his guard, and going back
wards, he avoided the blow, which reached no farther than his
Cloaths. He kept still the Coat that was run thro' with the Dagger,
as a Memorial of that event. Afterwards, not thinking himself to be
safe at Amsterdam, he resolved to retire somewhere else with the
first opportunity. Besides, he was desirous to go on with his Studies
and Physical Meditations in a quiet Retreat.

He was excommunicated by the Jews.

HE had no sooner left the Communion of the Jews, but they pro
secuted him Juridically according to their Ecclesiastical Laws, and
Excommunicated him. He himself did very often own that he was
Excommunicated by them, and declared, that from that time he
broke all Friendship and Correspondence with them. Some Jews
of Amsterdam, who knew Spinosa very well, have also confirmed to
me the truth of that fact, adding, that the Sentence of Excom
munication was publickly pronounced by the Old Man Chacham
Abuabh, a Rabbin of great Reputation amongst 'em. I have
desired in vain the Sons of that old Rabbin to communicate that
Sentence to me; they answered me, that they could not find it

1 [This was a translation from Bayle's Dictionary > as Colerus himself afterwards
says.]

APPENDIX. 4I;

amongst the Papers of their Father, but I cou'd easily perceive that
they had no mind to impart it to me.1

Spinosa learns a Trade or a Mechanical Art.

THE Law and the antient Jewish Doctors do expressly say, that
it is not enough for a man to be learned, but that he ought besides to
learn a Profession or a Mechanical Art, that it may be a help to him
in case of necessity, and that he may get wherewith to maintain him
self. This Rabbin Gamaliel does positively say in the Treatise of
the Talmuel Pirke avoth Chap. 2. where he teaches, that the study of
the Law is a very desirable thing, when it is attended with a Profession
or a Mechanical Art : For, says he, a continual application to those
two exercises keeps a Man from doing Evil, and makes him forget it ;
' and every Learned Man who neglects to learn a Profession, will at
last turn a loose Man. And Rabbi Jehuda adds, that every Man, who
does not take care that his children shou'd learn a Trade, does the
same thing as if he taught them how to become High-way-men.

Spinosa being well versed in the Study of the Law, and of the
Customs of the Ancients, was not ignorant of those Maxims, and did
not forget them, tho he was separated from the Jews, and excommu
nicated by them. Because they are wise and reasonable Maxims he
made a good use of 'em, and learned a Mechanical Art before he
embraced a quiet and a retir'd Life, as he was resolv'd to do. He
learned therefore to make Glasses for Telescopes, and for some
other uses, and succeeded so well therein, that People came to him
from all Parts to buy them ; which did sufficiently afford him where
with to live and maintain himself. A considerable number of those
Glasses, which he had polished, were found in his Cabinet after his
death, and sold pretty dear, as it appears by the Register of the
Publick Cryer, who was present at the Sale of his Goods.

After he had perfected himself in that Art, he apply'd himself to
Drawing, which he learn' d of himself, and he cou'd draw a Head very
well with Ink, or with a Coal. I have in my Hands a whole Book of
such Draughts, amongst which there are some Heads of several con
siderable Persons, who were known to him, or who had occasion to

1 Golems proceeds to discuss the Jewish law and practice of excommunication,
and inserts a form communicated to him by Surenhusius. The shorter form
actually used in Spinoza's case, and first made known by Van Vloten, has already
been given in the text, p. 18 above. A revised version of that set out by
Colerus may be seen in G. H. Lewes's Hist, of Philosophy, ii. 165 (s

E li

4i 8 APPENDIX.

visit him. Among those Draughts I find in the 4th Sheet a Fisher
man having only his Shirt on, with a Net on his Right Shoulder, whose
Attitude is very much like that of Massanello * the famous Head of
the Rebels of Naples -, as it appears by History, and by his Cuts.2
Which gives me occasion to add, that Mr. Vander Spyck, at whose
House Spinosa lodged when he died, has assured me, that the Draught
of that Fisherman did perfectly resemble Spinosa, and that he had
certainly drawn himself. I need not mention the considerable
Persons, whose Heads are likewise to be found in this Book, amongst
his other Draughts.

Thus he was able to maintain himself with the work of his Hands,
and to mind his Study, as he design'd to do. So that having no
occasion to stay longer in Amsterdam, he left it, and took Lodgings
in the House of one of his Acquaintance, who lived upon the Road
from Amsterdam to Auwerkerke. He spent his time there in study
ing, and working his Glasses. When they were polished, his Friends
took care to send for them, to sell 'em, and to remit his Money to
him.

He went to live at Rynsburg, afterwards at Voorburg, and at
last at the Hague.

IN the year 1664 Spinosa left that place, and retired to Rynsburg
near Ley den, where he spent all the Winter, and then he went to
Voorburg, a league from the Hague, as he himself says, in his 30 th
Letter written to Peter Balling? He lived there, as I am informed,
three or four years ; during which time, he got a great many Friends
at the Hague, who were all distinguisht by their Quality, or by Civil
and Military Employments. They were often in his Company, and
took a great delight in hearing him discourse. It was at their re
quest that he settl'd himself at the Hague 2^ last, where he boarded at
first upon the Veerkaay, at a Widow's whose Name was Van Velden, in
the same House where I lodge at present. The Room wherein I study,
at the further end of the House backward, two pair of Stairs, is the
same where he lay, and where he did work and study. He wou'd
very often have his Meat brought into that Room, where he kept
sometimes two or three days, without seeing any Body. But being
sensible that he spent a little too much for his Boarding, he took a

1 Sic,

2 Fn 'comme il est represente dans 1'Histoire et en Taille-douce.'
B Misprinted Railing in the English version*

APPENDIX. 4I9

Room upon the Pavilioengracht, behind my House, at Mr. Henry
Vander Spyck's, whom I have often mention'd, where he took care to
furnish himself with Meat and Drink, and where he lived a very
retired Life, according to his fancy.

He was very Sober, and very Frugal.

IT is scarce credible how sober and frugal he was all the time. Not
that he was reduced to so great a Poverty, as not to be able to spend
more, if he had been willing ; he had Friends enough, who offered
him their Purses, and all manner of assistance : But he was naturally
very sober, and could be satisfied with little ; and he did not care
that People shou'd think that he had lived, even but once, at the
expence of other Men. What I say about his Sobriety and good
Husbandry, may be prov'd by several small Reckonings, which have
been found amongst his Papers after his death. It appears by them,
that he lived a whole day upon a Milk-soop done with Butter, which
amounted to three pence, and upon a Pot of Beer of three half pence.
Another day he eat nothing but Gruel done with Raisins and
Butter, and that Dish cost him fourpence half penny. There are
but two half pints of Wine at most for one Month to be found
amongst those Reckonings, and tho he was often invited to eat with
his Friends, he chose rather to live upon what he had at home, tho
it were never so little, than to sit down at a good Table at the expence
of another Man.

Thus he spent the remaining part of his Life in the House of his
last Landlord, which was somewhat above five years and a half.
He was very careful to cast up his Accounts every Quarter ; which
he did, that he might spend neither more nor less than what he could
spend every year. And he would say sometimes to the people of the
House, that he was like the Serpent, who forms a Circle with his
Tail in his Mouth ; to denote that he had nothing left at the years
end. He added, that he design'd to lay up no more Money than
what would be necessary for him to have a decent Burying ; and
that, as his Parents had left him nothing, so his Heirs and Relations
should not expect to get much by his Death.

His Person, and his way of Dressing himself.

As for his Person, his Size, and the features of his Face, there
are still many people at the Hague, who saw and knew him par
ticularly. He was of a middle size, he had good features in his Face,

* E E 2

420 APPENDIX.

the Skin somewhat black, black curl'd Hair, long Eye-brows, and of
the same Colour, so that one might easily know by his Looks that
he was descended from Portuguese Jews. As for his Cloaths, he was
very careless of 'em, and they were not better than those of the
meanest Citizen. One of the most eminent Councellors of State
went to see him, and found him in a very slovenly Morning-Gown,
whereupon the Councellor blam'd him for it, and ofTer'd him another.
Spinosa answer'd him, that a Man was never the better for having a
finer Gown. To which he added, It is unreasonable to wrap up things
cf little or no value in a precious Covert

His Manners, his Conversation, and his Uninterestedness.

IF he was very frugal in his way of living, his Conversation was
also very sweet and easy. He knew admirably well how to be
master of his Passions : He was never seen very melancholy, nor
very merry. He had the command of his Anger, and if at any time
he was uneasy in his mind, it did not appear outwardly ; or if he
happen'd to express his grief by some gestures, or by some words, he
never fail'd to retire immediately, for fear of doing an unbecoming
thing. He was besides, very courteous and obliging, he would
very often discourse with his Landlady, especially when she lay in,
and with the people of the House, when they happen'd to be sick or
afflicted ; he never fail'd then to confort 2 'em, and exhort them to
bear with Patience those Evils, which God assigned to them as a
Lot. He put the Children in mind of going often to Church, and
taught them to be obedient and dutiful to their Parents. When the
people of the House came from Church, he wou'd often ask them
what they had learn'd, and what they cou'd remember of the Sermon.
He had a great esteem for Dr. Cordes, my Predecessor ; who was a
learned and good natured Man, and of an exemplary Life, which

1 But see the Treatise of God and Man, part ii. cap. 12, where Spinoza says
that it is fit for us to take notice of men's common feelings and prejudices, and
that sometimes we are even bound to abridge our otherwise lawful freedom : thus
it is wrong to wear costly apparel for mere show and selfish pride : ' but if a man
sees that his wisdom, whereby he might profit his neighbours, is despised and
trodden under foot because he is ill clad, then he does well to furnish himself

from desire to help his neighbours) with such clothing as offends them not.' We
may therefore believe Lucas when he tells' us that Spinoza, so far from being
habitually careless of his appearance, was scrupulously neat : ' il ne sortoit jamais
qu'on ne vit paroitre en ses habits ce qiri distingue d'ordinaire un honnete Homme
d'un Pedant.'

2 Sic.

APPENDIX. 421

gave occasion to Spinosa to praise him very often. Nay, he went
sometimes to hear him preach, and he esteem'd particularly his
learned way of explaining the Scripture, and the solid applications
he made of it. He advised at the same time his Landlord and the
People of the House, not to miss any Sermon of so excellent a
Preacher.

It happen'd one day, that his Landlady ask'd him whether
he believed, she cou'd be saved in the Religion she profest : He
answered, Your Religion is a good one, you need not look for another,
nor doubt that you may be saved in it, provided, whilst you apply your
self to Piety , you live at the same time a peaceable and quiet Life.

When he staid at home, he was troublesome to no Body ; he spent
the greatest part of his time quietly in his own Chamber. When he
happen'd to be tired by having applyed himself too much to his Phi
losophical Meditations, he went down Stairs to refresh himself, and
discoursed with the people of the House about any thing, that might
afford Matter for an ordinary Conversation, and even about trifles.
He also took Pleasure in smoaking a Pipe of Tobacco ; or, when he
had a mind to divert himself somewhat longer, he look'd for some
Spiders, and made 'em fight together, or he threw some Flies into the
Cobweb, and was so well pleased with that Battel, that he wou'd some
times break into Laughter. He observed also, with a Microscope,
the different parts of the smallest Insects, from whence he drew such
Consequences as seem'd to him to agree best with his Discoveries.

He was no lover of Money, as I have said, and he was very well
contented to live from Hand to Mouth. Simon de Fries of
Amsterdam, who expresses a great love for him, in the 26th Letter,
and calls him his most faithful Friend, Amice integerime? presented
him one day, with a summ of two thousand Florins, to enable him to
live a more easie Life ; but Spinosa, in the presence of his Landlord,
desired to be excused from accepting that Money, under pretence that
he wanted nothing, and that if he received so much Money, it wou'd
infallibly divert him from his Studies and Occupations.

The same Simon de Vries being like to die, and having no Wife
nor Children, design'd to make him his general Heir ; but Spinosa
wou'd never consent to it, and told him, that he shou'd not think to
leave his Estate to any Body but to his Brother, who lived at
Schiedam, seeing he was his nearest Relation, and natural Heir.

This was executed as he proposed it ; but it was upon condition,
that the Brother and Heir of Simon de Vries shou'd pay to Spinosa

1 sic.

422 APPENDIX.

a sufficient Annuity for his maintenance ; and that Clause was like
wise faithfully executed. But that which is particular, is, that an
Annuity of 500 Florins was offered to Spinosa by virtue of that
Clause, which he would not accept, because he found it too consider
able, so that he reduced it to 300 Florins. That Annuity was
regularly paid him during his Life ; and the same de Vries of
Schiedam took care after his death to pay to Mr. Vander Spyck what
Spinosa owed him, as it appears by the Letter of John Rieuwertz,
Printer at Amsterdam, who was employed in that Affair. It is dated
the 6th of March, I678,1 and directed to Vander Spyck himself.

Another instance of the Uninterestedness of Spinosa, is what
past after the death of his Father. His Father's Succession was to
be divided between him and his Sisters, to which they were con
demned in Law, tho they had left no Stone unturn'd to exclude
him from it. Yet instead of dividing that Succession, he gave them
his share, and kept only for himself a good Bed, with its furniture.

He was known to several Persons of great Consideration.

Spinosa had no sooner published some of his Works, but he grew
very famous in the World, amongst the most considerable Persons,
who look'd upon him as a Man of a noble Genius, and a great
Philosopher. Monsieur Stoupe, Lieutenant-Collonel of a Regiment
of Swissers, in the service of the King of France, commanded in the
City of Utrecht in 1673 ; he had been before Minister of the
Walloon Church? in London, during the Civil Wars of England in
Cromwell time • he was made afterwards a Brigadeer, and was
killed at the Battel of Steenkirke. Whilst he was at Utrecht, he writ
a Book entituled, The Religion of the Dutch, wherein he upbraids the
Reformed Divines, amongst other things, for neglecting to confute
or answer a Book, which was published under their Eyes, in the year
1670, entituled Tractatns Theologico-Politicns, whereof Spinosa owned
himself to be the Author, in his nineteenth Letter. This is what
Monsieur Stoupe says.3 But the famous Brannius, Professor of the
University of Groningen, shewed the contrary in his Answer to Mon
sieur Stoupe V Book : And indeed so many Books published against that
abominable Treatise, do evidently shew that Monsieur Stoupe was
mistaken. At that very time he writ several Letters to Spinoza, from

1 A mistake for 1677 ? 2 ' Ministre de la Savoie.'

3 Extracts from his book are given in Paulus's ed. of Spinoza's works, vol. if.
p. 670.

APPENDIX. 423

whom he received several Answers ; and at last he desired him to
repair to Utrecht at a certain time. Monsieur Stoupe was so much
the more desirous that he shou'd come thither, because the Prince
of Conde, who took then possession of the Government of Utrecht,
had a great mind to discourse with Spinosa : And it was confidently
reported that his Highness was so well disposed to recommend him
to the King, that he hoped to obtain easily a Pension for him,
provided he wou'd be willing to dedicate one of his Books to his
Majesty. He received that Letter with a Passport, and set out from
the Hague a little while after he had received it. Francis Halma
says, in his Dutch Account of Spinosa^ that he paid a Visit to the
Prince of Conde with whom he had several Conversations for
several days, and with some other Persons of note, particularly with
Lieutenant Colonel Stoupe. But Vander Spyck and his Wife, in
whose House he did lodge, and who are still living, have assured me,
that he told them positively at his return, that he cou'd not see the
Prince of Conde, because he set out from Utrecht some days before
he arrived there. But that in the discourse he had with Monsieur
Stoupe, that Officer had assured him, that he wou'd willingly use his
Interest for him, and that he should not doubt to obtain a Pension t
from the King's Liberality, at his recommendation. Spinosa added
that, because he did not design to dedicate any Book to the King of
France, he had refused the offer that was made him, with all the
civility he was capable of.

After his return, the Mob at the Hague were extreamly incensed
against him, they look'd upon him as a Spy, and whispered in one
anothers Ears, that they ought to kill so dangerous a Man, who
treated, without doubt, of State affairs, keeping so publick a Corres-
pondance with the Enemies. Spinosds Landlord was alarm'd at it,
and was afraid, not without reason, that the Mob wou'd break into
the House, and perhaps plunder it, and then drag Spinosa out of it :
But Spinosa put him in heart again, and remov'd his fears as well as
he could. Fear nothing, said he to him, upon my account, I can easily
justify myself: There are People enough, and even some of the most
considerable Persons of the State, who know very well what put me
upon that Journey. But hoiv ever, as soon as the Mob make the least
noise at your Door, Pll go and meet 'em, tho1 they were to treat me, as

t The King ^France gave at that time Pensions to all learned Men, especially
to the Strangers, 'who presented or dedicated some Books to him.

1 Fr. ' La Vie de notre Philosophe, qu'il a traduite et extraite du Dictionnaire
de Mr. Bayle.'

424 APPENDIX.

they treated poor Messieurs de Wit. / am a good Republican, and /
always aimed at the Glory and Welfare of the State.

In that same year Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, of glorious
Memory, being informed of the capacity of that great Philosopher,
was desirous that he shou'd come to Heydelberg to teach Philosophy
there, knowing nothing, without doubt, of the Venom concealed in
his Breast, and which was more openly manifested afterwards. His
Electoral Highness ordered the famous Dr. Fabritius, Professor of
Divinity, a good philosopher, and one of his Councellors, to propose
it to Spinosa. He offered him in the Prince's Name, with that Pro
fessorship, a full Liberty of Reasoning according to his Principles, as
he shou'd think fit, cum amplissima Philosophandi libertate. But
that Offer was attended with a Condition, which Spinosa did not like
at all. For tho' the Liberty granted to him was never so great, yet
he was not allowed in any manner whatsoever to make use of it, to
the prejudice of the Religion established by the Laws : As it appears
by Dr. Fabritiufs Letter dated from Heydelberg the i6th of February.
See Spinosrfs Opera PostJmma Epist. 53. pag. 561. He is honoured
in that Letter, with the. Title of most Acute and most Famous Philo
sopher, Philosophe acutissime ac celeberrime.

This was a Mine, to which he easily gave Vent, if I may be allowed
to use such an Expression : He perceived the difficulty, or rather the
impossibility of reasoning according to his Principles, without ad
vancing anything that shou'd be contrary to the established Religion.
He return'd an Answer to Dr. Fabritius the 3oth of March 1673, and
refused civilly the Professorship that was offered him. He told him
that The instruction of young Men wou'd prove an Obstacle to his own
Studies, and that he never had the thoughts of embracing such a Profes
sion. But this was a meer pretence, and he does plainly enough
discover his inward thoughts by the following words. " Besides, (says
" he to the Doctor) I consider that you don't tell me within what
" bounds that liberty of Philosophizing must be confined, that I may
" not publickly disturb the established Religion. Cogito deinde me
nescire quibus limitibus libertas ilia Philosophandi intercludi debeat, ne
videar publice Stabilitam Religionem perturbare velle. See his Posthu
mous Works, pag. 563 Epist. 54.

His Writings, and his Opinions.

As for his works, there are some, which are ascribed to him, but
it is not certain that he is the Author of 'em ; Some are lost, or at

APPENDIX. 425

least are not to be found, others are Printed and exposed to every
Body's view.

Monsieur Bayle tells us in his Histtrical and Critical Dictionary,
that Spinosa writ an Apology in Spanish for his leaving the
Synagogue ; but that it was never Printed. He adds, that Spinosa
inserted several things in it, which were found afterwards in his
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus : But I have not been able to hear any
thing concerning that Apology ; tho in my enquiries about it I have
consulted some Persons, who were familiarly acquainted with him,
and who are alive still.

He published in the year 1664, Descartes^ Principles of Philo
sophy Geometrically demonstrated : Reuati Descartes principiorum
Philosophies pars prima et secunda more Geometrico demonstrate ;
which were soon followed by his Metaphysical Meditations, Cogitata
Metaphysica : and had he gone no farther, he might have preserved to
this day, the deserved Reputation of a Wise and Learned Philosopher.
In the year 1665 there came out a little Book in Twelves entituled,
Lutii Antistii Constantis de Jure Ecclesiasticorum. Alethopoli apud
Caium Valerium pennatum. The author of that Book endeavours to
prove that the Spiritual and Political Right, which the Clergy ascribe
to themselves, and which is ascribed to them by others, does not
belong to them in the least ; that Clergy-men abuse it in a Profane
manner, and that all their Authority depends upon that of the
Magistrates or Sovereigns, who are in the place of God, in the Cities
and Commonwealths wherein the Clergy have established themselves:
And therefore, that the Ecclesiasticks ought not to take upon them
selves to teach their own Religion, but that which the Magistrates
order ;em to Preach. All that Doctrine is built upon the Principles,
which Hobbes made use of in his Leviathan. Monsieur Bayle tells
us, that the Style, Principles and Design of Antistiufs Book were
like that of Spinosa^ which is entituled, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus •
but this does not prove that Spinosa was the Author of it. Tho' the
first Book came out just at the same time that Spinosa began to write
his ; and tho' the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published soon
after ; yet it is not a proof neither, that the one was the fore-runner of
the other. It may very well be, that two Men will undertake to write
and advance the same impious things ; and tho' their Writings shou'd
come out much about the same time, it cou'd not be inferred from
thence, that they were written by one and the same Author. Spinosa
himself being asked by a Person of great Consideration, whether he
was the Author of the first Treatise, denied it positively ; I have it from

426 APPENDIX.

very good Hands. The Latin of those two Books, the Style, and the
Expressions are not so like neither, as 'tis pretended : The former ex
presses himself with a profound respect, when he speaks of God : he
calls him often Deum ter Optimum Maximum. But I find no such
Expressions in any part of the writings of Spinosa.

Several Learned Men have assured me, that the impious Book
Printed in 1666 in Qtiarto, and entituled, The Holy Scripture
explained by Philosophy : Philosophia sacrce Scripturce. interpres, and
the above-mentioned Treatise were both written by one and the
same author, viz. L. M. and tho the thing seems to me very likely,
yet I leave it to the judgment of those who may be better informed.

It was in the year 1670 that Spinosa published his Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus. He who translated it into Dutch, thought fit to
entitle it, The judicious and political Divine; De Regtzenninge1
Theologant, of Godgeleerde Staatkunde. Spinosa does plainly say
that he is the Author of it in his iQth Letter, directed to Mr. Olden-
burgh : He desires him in that same Letter, to send him the Objec
tions, which Learned Men raised against his Book ; for he design'd
then to get it Re-printed, and to add some Remarks to it. If we be
lieve the Title Page of that Book, it was Printed at Hamburg, by Henry
Conrad. But it is certain that the Magistrates, and the Reverend
Ministers of Hamburg had never permitted, that so many impious
things shou'd have been Printed and publickly sold in their City.

There is no doubt but that Book was Printed at Amsterdam by
Christopher Conrad. Being sent for to Amsterdam in 1679 for some
Business, Conrad himself brought me some copies of that Treatise,
and presented me with them, not knowing that it was a very per
nicious Book.

The Dutch Translator was also pleased to honour the City of
Bremen with so noble a Production : as if his Translation had come
from the Press of Hans Jur gel Vander Weyl, in the year 1694. But
what is said of those Impressions of Bremen and Hamburg is equally
false : and they would have met with the same difficulties in either of
those Towns, if they had undertaken to Print and Publish such Books
therein. Philopater, whom we have already mentioned, does openly
say in the continuation of his Life, pag. 231, that old John Hendrikzen,
Glasemaker, whom I knew very well, was the Translator of that
Book : and he assures us at the same time, that he had likewise
Translated into Dutch the Posthumous Works of Spinosa, Published
in 1677. He values and extols so much that Treatise of

APPENDIX. 427

that one would think the World never saw the like. The Author, or
at least the Printer, of the continuation of Philopater1 s Life, Aard
Wolsgryk, heretofore a Bookseller at Amsterdam in the corner ot
Rosmaryn-Steeg) was punish'd for his Insolence, as he deserv'd, and
confm'd to the House of Correction, to which he was condemn'd for
some years. I wish, with all my heart, he may have repented of his
fault during the stay he made in that place ; I hope he came out of
it with a better mind, and that he was in such a disposition, when I
saw him here (at the Hague] last Summer, whither he came to be
paid for some Books, which he had Printed heretofore, and deliver'd
to the Booksellers of this Town.

To return to Spinosa and his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, I shall
say what I think of it, after I have set down the judgment, which two
famous Authors made of it, one whereof was of the Confession of
Ausburg,1 and the other Reformed. The first is Spitzelius, who
speaks of it thus, in his Treatise entituled Infelix Literator^ p. 363.
"That impious author (Spinosa) blinded by a prodigious pre-
" sumption, was so impudent and so full of Impiety, as to main-
" tain that Prophecies were only grounded upon the fancy of the
" Prophets ; and that the Prophets and the Apostles wrote naturally
" according to their own light and knowledge, without any Revelation
" or Order from God : That they accommodated Religion, as well as
"they cou'd, to the Genius of those who lived at that time, and
" established it upon such Principles as were then well known, and
" commonly received. Irreliogissimus 3 Author stupenda sui fidentia
plane fascinates, eo progresses impudentice et impictatis fnit nt pro-
phetiam dependisse • dixerit a fallad imaginatione prophetarum, cosque
pariter ac Apostolos non ex Revclatione et Divino mandato Scripsisse,
sed tantum ex ipsorummet naturali jndicio; accommodavisse insuper
Religionem, quo ad fieri potuit, hominum sui temporis ingenio, illamque
fundamentis turn temporis maxime notis et acceptis super adificasse.
Spinosa pretends in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, that the same
Method may and ought to be observed still for explaining the Holy
Scripture ; for he maintains, amongst other things, that, as the
Scripture, when it was first published, was fitted to the established
opinions, and to the capacity of the People, so every Body^ is free to
expound it according to his Knowledge, and make it agree with his own
opinions.

If this was true, good Lord ! What respect cou'd we have for the
Scripture? How cou'd we maintain that it is Divinely inspired?
1 Sic. 2 Van der Linde, BiMo%r. no. 358, n. s Sic.

428 APPENDIX.

That it is a sure and firm Prophecy ; that the Holy Men, who are
the Authors of it, spoke and wrote by God's order, and by the inspira
tion of the Holy Spirit j that the same Scripture is most certainly true,
and that it gives a certain Testimony of its Truth to our Consciences ;
and lastly, that it is a Judge, whose Decisions ought to be the constant
and unvariable Rule of our Thoughts, of our Faith, and of our Lives.
If what Spinosa affirms were true, one might indeed very well say,
that the Bible is a Wax-Nose, which may be turned and shaped at
one's will ; a Glass, thro' which every Body may exactly see what
pleases his fancy ; a Fool's Cap, which may be turned and fitted at
one's pleasure a hundred several ways. The Lord confound thee,
Satan, and stop thy mouth !

Spitzelius is not contented to say what he thinks of that per •
nicious Book ; but he adds to the judgment he made of it, that of
Mr de Mansemld heretofore Professor at Utrecht ', who speaks of it
thus, in a Book Printed at Amsterdam, in 1674. My opinion ts,
tJiat that Treatise ought to be buried for ever in an (eternal oblivion :
Tractatum hunc ad ceternas damnandum tenebras, &c. Which is very
judiciously said ; seeing that Wicked Book does altogether overthrow
the Christian Religion, by depriving the Sacred Writings of the
Authority, on which it is solely grounded and established.

The second Testimony I shall produce is, that of Mr. William
van Blyenburg of Dordrect? who kept a long correspondence with
Spinosa^ and who in his 3ist Letter to him (See Spinosa' $ Posthumous
Works pag. 476) says, speaking of himself, that he had embraced no
Profession, and that he lived by an honest Trade, Liber sum nulli
adstrictus profession^ honestis mercatnris me alo. That Merchant, who
is a learned Man, in the Preface of a Book entituled, The truth of the
Christian Religion, Printed at Ley den, in 1674, gives his judgment
about the Treatise of Spinosa in these words. It is a Book, says he,
///// of curious, but abominable discoveries, the Learning and Inquiries
whereof must needs have been fetched from Hell. Every Christian, nay,
every Man of Sense, ought to abhor such a Book. The Author en
deavours to overthrow the Christian Religion, and baffle all our hopes,
which are grounded upon it: In the room whereof he introduces
Atheism, or at most, a Natural Religion forged according to the
humour or interests of the Soveraigns. The wicked shall be restrained
only by the fear of Punishment ; but a Man of no Conscience, who
neither fears the Executioner nor the Laws, may attempt anything to
satisfy himself, &c.

APPENDIX. 429

I must add, that I have read that Book of Spinosa with application
from the beginning to the end ; but I protest at the same time before
God, that I have found no solid arguments in it, nor anything that
cou'd shake, in the least, my belief of the Gospel. Instead of solid
reasons, it contains meer suppositions, and what we call in the
School, petitiones prindpii. The things which the Author advances,
are given for Proofs, which being denied and rejected, the remaining
part of his Treatise will be found to contain nothing but Lies and
Blasphemies. Did he think that the World wou'd believe him
blindly upon his word, and that he was not obliged to give good
reasons and good proofs for what he advanced ?

Lastly, several Writings, which Spinosa left after his death were
Printed in 1677, in which year he also died. They are called his
Posthumous Works, Opera Posthnma. These three Letters B. D. S.
are to be found in the Title of the Book, which contains five several
works. The first, is a Treatise of Morals demonstrated Geometrically,
Ethica more Geometrico demonstrata. The second, is about Politicks.
The third, treats of the Understanding, and of the means of rectify
ing it, De emendatione Intellect™. The fourth, is a Collection of
Letters, and Answers to them, Epistolce 6- Responsiones. The fifth,
is an Abridgement of the Hebrew Grammar, Compendium Gram-
matices Lingua Hebraeas. The Printer's name and the place wherein
that Book was Printed, are not mention'd in the Title-page ; which
shews that the Person who published it, did not care to be known.
But Mr. Vander Spyck, Spinosa's Landlord, who is alive still, tells me
that Spinosa ordered, that immediately after his death, his Desk,
which contained his Letters and Papers, shou'd be sent to John
Rieuwertzen, a Printer at Amsterdam : Which Vander Spyck did not
fail to perform according to his Will. And John Rieuwertzen acknow
ledged that he had received that Desk, as it appears by his Answer
dated from Amsterdam the 25th of March, 1677. He adds towards the
latter part of his Letter, that The Relations of Spinosa wou'd fain know
to whom it was directed, because they fancied that it was full of Money
and that they wou'd not fail to enquire about it of the Waterman, who
had been intrusted with it. But, says he, if the Packets, that are stni
hither by water, are not registred at the Hague, / don't see how they
can be informed about it, and indeed it is better they shou'd know
nothing of it} &c. He ends his Letter with those words, and it does
clearly appear by that Letter, to whom we are beholden for so
abominable a Production.

Several Learned Men have already sufficiently discovered the

430 APPENDIX.

impious Doctrines contained in those Posthumous Works, and have
given notice to every Body to beware of 'em. I shall only add
some few things to what has been said by them. The Treatise of
Morals begins with some Difinitions l or Descriptions of the Deity.
Who would not think at first, considering so fine a beginning, that he
is reading a Christian Philosopher ? All those Difinitions are fine,
especially the sixth, wherein Spinosa says, that God is an infinite
Being ; that is, a Siibstance, which contains in it self an infinity of
Attributes, every one whereof represents a?id expresses an Eternal and
infinite Substance. But when we enquire more narrowly into his
Opinions, we find that the God of Spinosa is a meer Phantom, an
imaginary God, who is nothing less than God. And therefore the
words of the Apostle, Tit. i. 16, concerning impious Men, may be
very well applied to that Philosopher : They profess that they know
God, but in Works they deny him. What David says of ungodly Men
Psalm 14. i. does likewise suit him : The Fool has said in his Heart,
there is 710 God. This is the true Opinion of Spinosa, whatever he
might say. He takes the liberty to use the word God, and to take it in
a sense unknown to all Christians. This he confesses himself in his
2ist Letter to Mr. Oldenburg: I acknowledge, says he, that I have a
notion of God and Nature, very different from that of the Modern
Christians. I believe that God is the Immanent, and not the Transient
Cause of all things: Deum rerum omnium Causam immanentem, non
vero transeumtem statuo. And to confirm his Opinion, he alledges
these Words of St Paul; In him we live, and move, and have our
Being. Act. 17. 28.

In order to understand him, we must consider that a Transient Cause
is, that2 the Productions whereof are external, or out of it self; as a
Man, who throws a Stone into the Air, or a Carpenter, who builds a
House : Whereas the Immanent Cause acts inwardly, and is confined
within itself, without acting outwardly. Thus when a Man's Soul
thinks of, or desires something, it is or remains in that thought or
desire, without going out of it, and is the immanent Cause thereof.
In the same manner, the God of Spinosa is the Cause of the Universe
wherein he is, and he is not beyond it. But because the Universe
has some bounds, it wou'd follow that God is a limited and finite
Being. And tho he says that God is infinite, and comprehends an
infinity of Perfections ; he must needs play with the words Eternal

1 Sic.

2 According to modern practice the sense would require the comma to be after
that.

APPENDIX. 43t

and Infinite, seeing he cannot understand by them a Being, which
did subsist before Time was, and before any other Being was created
but he calls that infinite, wherein the Humane Understanding can
neither find an End, nor any Bounds : For he thinks the Productions
of God are so numerous, that Man, with all the strength of his Mind,
cannot conceive any Bounds in them. Besides, they are so solid,
and so well settled and connected one with another, that they shall
last for ever.

Nevertheless, he says, in his 2ist Letter, that they were in the
wrong, who charged him with asserting that God and Matter, wherein
God Acts, are but one and the same thing. But after all, he can't
forbear confessing, that Matter is a thing essential to the Deity, who
is and works only in Matter, that is, in the Universe. The God of
Spinosa is therefore nothing else but Nature, infinite, but yet
corporeal and material, taken in general, and with all its Modifica
tions. For he supposes that there are two Eternal Properties in
God, cogitatio 6° extensio, Thinking and Extension : By the first of
those Properties, God is contain'd in the Universe ; by the second,
he is the Universe itself, and both joyn'd together make up what he
calls God.

As far as I am able to understand Spinosa, the dispute between
us Christians and him runs upon this, viz. Whether the true God be
an Eternal Substance, different and distinct from the Universe, and
from the whole Nature, and whether by a free Act of his Will he
produc'd the World, and all Creatures out of nothing ; or whether the
Universe, and all the Beings it comprehends, do essensually l belong
to the Nature of God, being considered as a Substance, whose
Thought and Extension are infinite ? Spinosa maintains the last
proposition. The Antispinosa of Z.2 Vittichius^ pag. 18. and seq.
may be consulted. Thus he owns indeed, that God is the general
Cause of all things ; but he pretends, that God produces 'em
necessarily without freedom and choice, and without consulting his
Will. In like manner, everything that happens in the World, Good
or Evil, Virtue or Vice, Sin or good Works, does necessarily proceed
from him ; and consequently there ought to be no Judgment, no
Punishment, no Resurrection, no Salvation, no Damnation. For
if it were so, that imaginary God wou'd Punish and Reward his own

1 Sic.

2 Sict an error for Ch, (Christopher), as rightly given in the original and the
French. (Bibliogr. 384, often confounded With James Wittichius, cf, 254, ti).

432 APPENDIX.

Work, as a Child does his Baby.1 Is it not the most pernicious
Atheism that ever was seen in the World? And therefore Mr.
Burmanus? a Reformed Minister, at Enkhuysen calls Spinosa, with
great Reason, the most impious Atheist, that ever liv'd upon the Face
of the Earth.

I don;t design to examine here all the impious and absurd
Doctrines of Spinosa ; I have mention'd some of the most important
only to inspire the Christian Reader with the aversion and horror he
ought to have for such pernicious Opinions. But I must not forget
to say, that it does plainly appear by the second part of his Ethicks,
that he makes the Soul and Body but one Being, the Properties
whereof are, as he expresses it, Thinking and Extension ; for he ex
plains himself in that Manner, pag. 40. " When I speak of the Body,
" I mean only a Mode, which expresses the Essence of God in a
"certain and precise manner, as he is considered under the notion of
" an extended thing. Per corpus intelligo modum qui Dei essentiam,
quattnus ut res extensa consideratur, certo 6° determinate modo ex-
primit. As for the Soul, which is, and acts in the Body, it is only
another Modification or manner of being, produced by Nature, or
manifested by Thought : It is not a Spirit, or a particular Substance
no more than the Body, but a Modification, which expresses the
Essence of God, as he manifests himself, Acts and Works by
Thought. Did ever any Body hear any such abominations among
Christians ! At that rate God cou'd neither Punish the Soul nor the
Body, unless he would Punish and Destroy himself. Towards the
latter part of his 2ist Letter, he overthrows the great Mystery of
Godliness, as we find it expressed i, Tim. 3. 16. by maintaining that
the Incarnation of the Son of God is nothing else but the Eternal
Wisdom, which having appeared in all things, particularly in our
Hearts and Souls, was at last manifested in an extraordinary manner
in Jesus Christ : he says a little lower, that some Churches indeed
add to it, that God made himself a Man ; but says he, / have, declared
in express terms, tJiat I dorft know what they mean by it. Quod
qucudam Ecclesicc hisaddant, quod Dcus naturam humanam assumpseiit,
monui expresse me quid dicant nesdre, &c. He goes on, and says, That
Doctrine seems to me to be as strange, as if any one shou'd teach that
a Circle has taken the nature of a Triangle or of a Square. Which
gives him occasion towards the latter part of his 23rd Letter, to ex
plain the famous passage of St John The Word was made Flesh
Chap. i. 14. by a way of speaking very common amongst the Eastern
1 i.e. doll. - Bibliogr. 492.

APPENDIX. 433

Nations, and to render it thus, God has manifested himself in Jesus
Christ, in a most particular manner.

I have shewn plainly, and in a few words, in my Sermon, how in
his 23rd and 24th Letters, he endeavours to destroy the Mystery of the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is a Capital Doctrine amongst
us, and the ground of our Hopes and Comfort. I need not spend
more time in setting down the other impious Doctrines, which he
teaches.

Some Writings of Spinosa, which have not been Printed.

HE, who took care to publish the Posthumous Works of Spinosa,
reckons amongst the Writings of that Author, which have not been
Printed, a Treatise concerning the Rain-Bow. I know some Men of
great note in this Town, (at the Hague] who have seen and read that
Treatise ; but they did not advise Spinosa to publish it : Which
perhaps gave him some trouble, and made him resolve to bum it
half a year before he died, as I have been informed by the people of
the House, where he lived. l He had also begun a Translation of
the Old Testament into Dutch, about which, he often discoursed
with some Men learned in the Languages, and enquired into the Ex
plications which the Christians give to several Passages. He had
finished the five Books of Moses, a great while ago, when some few
days before he died he burnt the whole Work in his Chamber.

Several Authors confute his Works.

His works were scarce published, but God raised to his Glory, and
for the defence of the Christian Religion, several Champions who
confuted them with all the Success they cou'd hope for. Dr. Theoph.
Spitzelius names two of 'em in his Book entituled Infelix Litcrator,
viz. Francis Kuyper of Rotterdam, whose Book printed in the same
Town, in the year 1676, is entituled Arcana Atheismi revelata, &c.
The profound Misteries of Atheism discovered. 2 The second is, Regnier
de Mansveld Professor, at Utrecht, who in the year 1674 Printed in
the same place a Book upon the same Subject.3

The next year 1675, a Confutation of the same Treatise of

Spinosa, entituled, Enervatio Tract at us Theologico-Politici^ came out

of the Press of Isaac Nceranus : It was written by John Bredenburg,

whose Father had been Elder of the Lutheran Church at Rotterdam.

1 See p. 21 above. 2 Bibliogr. 365. 3 Bibliogr. 363. * Bibliogr. 208,

F F

434 APPENDIX.

George Mathias Konig was pleased in his Bibliotheque of ancient
and modern Authors, pag. 770, to call him a certain Weaver of
Rotterdam, Textorem quendam Rotterodamensem. If he exercised such
a Mechanical Art, I am sure that no Man of his Profession did ever
shew so much ability, or produced such a Work ; for he does Geo
metrically demonstrate in that Book, and in a clear and unanswerable
manner, that Nature neither is, nor can be God himself, as Spinosa
pretends. Being not very well skill'd in the Latin Tongue, he was
obliged to write his Book in Dutch, and to make use of another Man's
hand to Translate it into Latin. Which he did, as he himself says in
the Preface to his Book, to the end, that Spinosa, who was still alive,
might have no excuse or pretence, in case he made no reply to it.

Nevertheless, I don't find that all the Arguments of that Learned
Man are convincing. Besides, he seems to incline to Sodnianism in
some parts of his Book. This is at least the judgment I make of it,
and I believe it does not differ in that respect from the judgment of
knowing Men, to whom I leave the decision of it. However, it is
certain, that Francis Kuyper and Bredenburg published several Writ
ings one against another, and that Kuyptr in his accusations against
his Adversary, pretended to no less than to convince him of Atheism.

In the year 1676, Lambert VeldJmis of Utrecht, published a Book,
entituled, Tractatus Moralis de Naturali pndore, 6- dignitate hominis. 1
He overthrows, in that Treatise, the Principles whereby Spinosa pre
tends to prove, that all the Good or Evil, which Men do, is produc'd by
a Superior and necessary operation of God or Nature. I have already
mention'd William Van Bleyenburg, a Merchant of Dordrecht, who
enter'd into the List in the year 1674,2 and refuted the impious Book
of Spinosa, entitul'd, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. I cannot forbear
comparing him with the Merchant, whom our Saviour speaks of,
Mat. XIII. 45, 46. Seeing he does not present us with worldly and
perishable Riches, by the publishing of his Book, but with a Treasure
of an infinite value, and which shall never perish. It were to be
wish'd, that there were many such Merchants upon the Exchanges of
Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Our Divines of the Confession of Augsburg have also distinguish
themselves amongst those, who have refuted the impious Doctrine of
Spinosa. His Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was scarce come out, but
they took Pen in hand and wrote against him. We may name first
Dr Mtisceus, Professor of Divinity, aifena, a Man of a great Genius,
and who perhaps had not his like in his time. During the Life of
1 Bibliogr. 358, «. 2 Bibliogr. 364.

APPENDIX. 435

Spinosa, viz. in the year 1704, he publish'd a Dissertation of twelve
Sheets, entitul'd, Tractates Theologico-Politicus ad Veritatis Lumen
examinatus.1 "The Theological and Political Treatise examin'd
" by the Light of Reason and Truth. He declares, pag. 2, 3. his
aversion and horror for such an impious Production, and expresses
it in these words, Jure merito quis dubitet, num ex illis, quos ipse
Dcemon adhumana divinaquejura peivertenda magno numero conduxit,
repertesfuerit, quiin Us depravandis operosior fuerit quam hie Impost or >
magno Ecclesicz malo & Reipublicce detrimento natus. " One may very
" well doubt, whether, amongst the many Men, whom the Devil has
" hir'd to overthrow all Humane and Divine right, any of 'em has been
" more busy about it, than that Impostor, who was born to the great
" Mischief of Church and State. He sets down (pag. 5, 6, 7.) with
great clearness the Philosophical Expressions of Spinosa, he explains
those which are capable of a double sense, and shews in what sense
Spinosa made use of 7em, that one may the better understand him.
He shews (pag. 16. §.32.) that when Spinosa published that Book, he
designed to teach that every Man has the right and liberty of fixing
his Belief in point of Religion, and of confining it only to such things
as are not above his reach, and which he can comprehend. He had
already (pag. 14. §. 28.) very clearly stated the Question, and shewn
wherein Spinosa differs from the Christians : And in the same manner
he continues to examine that Treatise of Spinosa, and confutes every
part of it with good and solid Reasons. There is no doubt but
Spinosa himself read that Book of Dr. Musaus, seeing it was found
amongst his Papers after his death.

Tho' several Authors writ against the Theological and
Political Treatise, as I have already observed ; yet none in my
Opinion has done it with more Solidity than that Learned Professor 3
and my judgment of him is confirmed by that of many others. The
Author, who, under the name of Theodorus Securus, published a small
Treatise, entituled, Origo Atheismi, says in another little Book, en-
tituled. Prudentia Theologica. " I do very much wonder that the Disser
tation of Dr. Musceus shou'd be so scarce, and so little known here
" in Holland. That learned Divine, who writ upon so important a
" Subject, shou'd have more justice done him ; for he has certainly
" had a better Success than any other. Mr. Fullerus, (in continuation
BibliotheccR Univer sails &c.) expresses himself thus, speaking of Dr.
Musaeus : " That most famous Divine of Jena has refuted the perni-
" cious Book of Spinosa with his usual solidity and learning. Cele-

1 Bibliogr. 362.
F F2

436 APPENDIX.

berrimus tile Jenensium Theologus Joh. Musseus Spinosse pestilentissi-
mumfoetum acutisstmis,1 queis sold, telis confodit.

The same Author does also mention Frederic Rapoltus, Professor
of Divinity, at Leipsick, who in a Speech which he pronounced when
he took Possession of his Professorship, did likewise refute the
Doctrine of Spinosa. I have read his Speech, and I find that he
has confuted him but indirectly, and without naming him : It is
entituled, Oratio contra Naturalistas, habita ipsis Kalendis Junii ann.
1670, and it is to be found in the Theological Works of Rappoltus
torn. r. pag. 1386 and Seq. published by Dr. John Benedict
Carpzovius, and Printed at Leipsick in 1692. Dr. J. Conrad
Durrius, Professor at Altorf, followed the same Plan in a Speech,2
which I have not read, but I have heard it highly commended.

Monsieur Aubert de Verse published in 1681 a Book, entituled,
The impious Man convinced^ or a Dissertation against Spinosa, wherein
the Grounds of his Atheism are confuted? In 1687 Peter Yvon, a
Kinsman and a Disciple of Labadie, and Minister of those of his
Sect at Wiewerden in Friseland, writ a Treatise against Spinosa which
he published under this Title, Impiety Vanquished, &c.4 In the
Supplement to Morerfs Dictionary, in the Article of Spinosa,
there is a Treatise mentioned, entituled, de concordia Rationis & Fidei,
written by Monsieur Huet : 5 That Book was Reprinted at Leipsick in
1692, and the Journalists of that City gave a good Abstract of it, (see
Acta Erudit. an. 1695, pag. 395) wherein the Doctrine of Spinosa is
set down with great clearness, and refuted with great Force and
Learning. The Learned Mr. Simon 6 and Mr. de la Motfe,5 Minister
of the Savoy in London, have both of 'em writ upon the same
subject : I have seen the Works of those two Authors, but I don't
understand French enough to judge of 'em. Mr. Peter Poiret who
lives now at Reinsburg near Leyden, published a Treatise against
Spinosa in the second Edition of his Book, De Deo, anima, 6° malo :
That Treatise is entituled, Fundamenta Atheismi eversa, sive specimen
absurditatis Spinosiantz.1 It is a work which very well deserves to
be read with attention.

The last Work, I shall mention, is that of Mr Wittichius, Pro
fessor at Leyden, which was Printed in 1690, after the death of the

1 The printing of this in the original is almost a curiosity ; it gives Spinosa,
pestilenlissiu m, accutissini is.

2 Bibliogr. 358, «. 3 Bibliogr. 301. The name should be de Verse.
1 Bibliogr. 368, 369 (Latin and French edd.). 5 Bibliogr. 358, n.

7 Bibliogr. 382.

APPENDIX. 437

Author, with this Title, Christophori Wittichii Pr of es sorts Leidensis
vto/- Spinosa, sive Examen Ethices~B. de Spinosa.1 It was sometime
after translated into Dutch ; and Printed at Amsterdam by Wasbergen. l
'Tis no Wonder to see that great Man defamed, and his Reputation
stained after his death, in such a Book as the Continuation of the Life
of Philopater. It is said in that Book, that Mr. Wittichius was an
excellent Philosopher, and a great Friend of Spinosa, that he kept
correspondence and had a great many private Conversations with him ;
in a word, that they were both of the same Opinion. That Mr.
Wittichius writ against the Ethicks of Spinosa, for fear of being
reputed a Spinosist, and that his Confutation was Printed after his
death only, that he might not lose his Honour, and the Reputa
tion of an Orthodox Christian. These are the calumnies, which
that insolent Author has advanced : I don't know from whence
he had 'em, nor upon what appearance of Truth he can build
so many Lies. How came he to know that those two Philo
sophers kept such strict a Correspondence together, that they
saw and writ so often to one another? We don't find any Letter
of Spinosa to Wittichius, nor of Wittichius to Spinosa among the
Letters of that Author, which have been Printed ; and there is
none neither among those which remain to be Printed : So that we
have all the reason in the World to believe, that this strict Corres
pondence, and the Letters which they writ to one another, are a meer
fiction of that Calumniator. I confess, I never had occasion to
speak to Mr. Wittichius ; but I am pretty well acquainted with Mr.
Zimmerman, his Nephew, who is now Minister of the Church of
England, and who lived with his Uncle the latter part of his Life.
What he told me upon that Subject, is altogether contrary to what
has been Published by the Author of Philopater 's Life : 2 Nay, he
shew'd me a Writing, which his Uncle had dictated to him, wherein
the Opinions of Spinosa are both well explained and confuted.
What can one desire more for his justification, than the last Work
which he writ ? There we see what he believed, and there he makes,
as it were, a Confession of his Faith before he died. Will any Man,
that has any sense of Religion, be so bold as to think and even to
publish, that it was all meer Hypocrisy, that he did it only that he
might go to Church, and to salve appearances, and avoid being
accounted an Impious Man and a Libertine ?

If any such thing cou'd be inferred, when there has been some
Correspondence between two Persons ; I shou'd not find my self very
1 Bibliogr. 384, 385. 2 Bibliogr. 72-76.

438 APPENDIX.

safe ; and few Ministers wou'd be secure from the Tongues of
Calumniators, seeing it is sometimes impossible for us to avoid all
manner of converse with some Persons, whose Belief is none of the
most Orthodox.

I shall willingly mention William Deurhof, of Amsterdam, and I
name him with all the distinction he deserves. That Professor has
always vigorously assaulted the Opinions of Spinosa in all his Works,
but especially in his Lectures of Divinity. 1 Mr. Francis Halma does
him justice in his Dutch account of Spinosa ; 2 when he says, that he
has refuted the Opinions of that Philosopher with so much solidity,
that none of his Partisans durst hitherto vye strength with him. He
adds, that that subtil Writer, is able still to confute the calumnies of
Philopater's Life, and to stop his mouth.

I shall say but one word of two famous Authors, and I'll put
'em together, tho' they are now set one against the other. The first
is Mr Bayle, so well known in the Common-wealth of Learning, that
I need not make his Encomium in this place. The second, is Mr
Jaquelot heretofore Minister of the French Church at the Hague, and
now Chaplain to the King of Prussia. They made both of 'em
learned and solid Remarks on the Life, Writings, and Opinions of
Spinosa, which have been Translated into Dutch by Francis Halma,
a Bookseller at Amsterdam, and a Scholar. He has added to his
Translation, a Preface, and some judicious Remarks upon the Con
tinuation of Philopater's Life ; which deserve to be read.

There is no need to mention here some Writers, who have very
lately opposed the Doctrine of Spinosa, upon account of a Book,
entituled, Hemcl op Aarden, Paradice on Earth, written by Mr van
Leenhoff, a Reformed Minister of Zwol, wherein 'tis pretended that
he builds upon the same foundations with Spinosa. Those things
are too fresh, and too well known to insist upon 'em : I therefore
proceed to mention the Death of that famous Atheist.

Of the last Sickness, and Death of Spinosa.

THERE has been so many various and false Reports about the
Death of Spinosa, that 'tis a wonder how some understanding Men
came to acquaint the Publick with it upon Hear-says, without taking
care to be better informed of what they published. One may find

1 Bibliogr. 190-207, see 194, «., where Dr. van der Linde retracts his former
opinion as to Deurhof's Spinozist tendencies,

2 Bibliogr. 70, 71.

APPENDIX. 439

a Pattern of those falsehoods in the Menagiana, Printed at
Amsterdam in 1695, where the Author expresses himself thus.1

" I have been told that Spinosa died of the fear he was in, of
" being committed to the Bastille. He came into France at the
" desire of two Persons of Quality, who had a mind to see him.
" Mr. de Pompone\&A notice of it, and being a Minister, very zealous
" for Religion, he did not think fit to permit that Spinosa shou'd live
"in France, where he might do a great deal of Mischief; and in
" order to prevent it, he resolv'd to send him to the Bastille. Spinosa
" having had notice of it, made his escape in a Fryar's Habit ; but I
" will not warrant this last Circumstance. That which is certain, is,
" that I have been told by several people, that he was a little Man,
" and of a yellowish complexion, and that he had an ill Look, and
' ' bore a Character of Reprobation in his Face.

There is not one word of truth in this Account ; for it is certain,
that Spinosa was never in France : And tho some Persons of great
note endeavoured to have him there,2 as he himself confest to his
Landlords, yet he assured them, at the same time, that he hoped he
wou'd never be so great a Fool as to do such a thing. One may
also easily judge from what I shall say hereafter, that it is "altogether
false that he died of Fear. Wherefore I shall set down the Circum
stances of his Death without partiality, and I shall advance nothing
without proving it ; which I can the more easily do, because he died,
and was buried here at the Hague.

Spinosa was a Man of a very weak Constitution, unhealthy and lean,
and had been troubled with a Pthysick above twenty years, which
oblig'd him to keep a strict course of Dyet, and to be extreamly sober
in his Meat and Drink. Nevertheless, his Landlord, and the people
of the House did not believe that he was so near his end, even a
little while before he died, and they had not the least thought of it.
For the 22nd 3 of February, which happened to be then the Saturday
before the last week of the Carnaval, his Landlord and his Wife went
to the Sermon which is preach'd in our Church, to dispose every
Body to receive the Communion, which is administred the next day
according to a Custom established amongst us. The Landlord being
come from Church at four a Clock, or thereabouts, Spinosa went
down Stairs, and had a pretty long Conversation with him, which did
particularly run upon the Sermon ; and having taken a Pipe of

1 Bibliogr. 98.

2 Probably on the occasion of his visit to the French camp in 1672.

3 It should be 2Oth, Colerus corrects himself afterwards, ad fin.

440 APPENDIX.

Tobacco, he retired into his Chamber, which was forwards, and went
to Bed betimes. Upon Sunday Morning before Church-time, he
went down Stairs again, and discoursed with his Landlord and his
Wife. He had sent for a Physitian from Amsterdam, whose Name I
shall only express by these two Letters, L. M. That Phisitian
ordered 'em to boil an old Cock immediately, that Spinosa might
take some Broth about noon, which he did, and eat some of the Meat
with a good Stomach, when his Landlord and his Wife came from
Church. In the afternoon the Physitian L. M. staid alone with
Spinosa, the people of the House being returned to Church. But
as they were coming from Church, they were very much sur
prized to hear, that Spinosa had expired about three a Clock,
in the presence of that Physitian, who that very Evening
returned to Amsterdam by the Night-boat, without taking any care
of the Deceased. He was more willing to dispense himself from
that Duty, because immediately after the Death of Spinosa he had
taken a Ducatoon and a little Money, which the Deceased had left
upon the Table, and a Knife with a Silver Handle ; and so retired
with his Booty.

The particularities of his Sickness and Death have been variously
reported, and have occasioned several Contestations. 'Tis said, ist,
That during his Sickness he took the necessary Precautions to avoid
being visited by those whose Sight wou'd have been troublesome to
him. 2dly, That he spoke once and even several times these words,
O God have mercy upon me miserable Sinner, sdly, That they heard
him often sigh, when he pronounced the Name of God. Which
gave occasion to those, who were present, to ask him, whether he
believed, at last, the Existence of a God, whose judgment he had great
Reason to fear after his death ? And that he answered 'em, that he
had dropt that word out of Custom. 'Tis said, 4thly, That he
kept by him some Juice of Mandrake ready at hand which he made
use of, when he perceived he was a dying, that he drew the Curtains
of his Bed afterwards, and then lost his Senses, fell into a profound
Sleep, and departed this Life in that manner. 5thly, That he had
given express orders to let no Body come into his Room, when he
shou'd be near his End : And likewise, that finding he was a dying,
he call'd for his Landlady, and desired her to suffer no Minister to
come to him ; because he was willing to die peaceably and without
disputing, &c.

I have carefully enquired into the truth of all those things, and
ask'd several times his Landlord and his Landlady, who are alive

APPENDIX. 441

still, what they knew of it : But they answered me, at all times, that
they knew nothing of it, and were perswaded that all those Circum
stances were meer Lies. For he never forbad them to admit any
body into his Room, that had a mind to see him. Besides, when he
was a dying, there was no body in his Chamber but the Physitian of
Amsterdam, whom I have mentioned. No body heard the words,
which 'tis said, he spoke, O God, have mercy upon me miserable
Sinner : Nor is it likely that they shou'd come out of his mouth,
seeing he did not think he was so near his Death, and the people
of the House had not the least suspicion of it. He did not keep his
Bed during his sickness ; for the very day that he died, he went down
Stairs, as I have observed : He lay forwards * in a Bed made accord
ing to the fashion of the Country, which they call Bedstead. His
Landlady, and the people of the House know nothing of his ordering
to send away the Ministers, that shou'd come to see him, or of his
invocating the Name of God during his Sickness. Nay, they believe
the contrary, because ever since he began to be in a languishing
condition, he always exprest, in all his sufferings, a truly Stoical
constancy ; even so as to reprove others, when they happened to
complain, and to shew in their Sicknesses little Courage or too great
a Sensibility.

Lastly, as for the Juice of Mandrake, which, 'tis said, he made
use of when he was a dying, which made him lose his Senses ; it is
also a circumstance altogether unknown to the people of the House.
And yet they us'd to prepare every thing he wanted for his Meat and
Drink, and the Remedies which he took from time to time. Nor
is that Drug mentioned in the Apothecary's Bill, who was the same to
whom the Physitian of Amsterdam sent for the Remedies, which
Spinosa wanted the last days of his Life.

Spinosa being dead, his Landlord took care of his Burial. John
Rieuwertz, a Printer at Amsterdam, desired him to do it, and
promised him, at the same time, that he shou'd be paid for all the
charges he should be at, and past his word for it. The Letter which
he wrote to him upon that Subject is dated from Amsterdam the 6th
of March i678.2 He does not forget to speak of that Friend of
Schiedam, whom I have mentioned, who to shew how dear and
precious the memory of Spinosa was to him, paid exactly to Vander
Spyck, all that he cou'd pretend from his late Lodger. The Money

1 Sa chambre etoit celle de devant.

- A mistake of the French version for 1677? cp. p. 422 above.

442 APPENDIX.

was at the same time remitted to him, as Rieuwettz himself had
received it by the order of his Friend.

As they were making everything ready for the Burial of Spinosa,
one Schroder, an Apothecary, made a Protestation against it, pretend
ing to be paid for some Medicines wherewith he had furnished the
Deceased during his Sickness. His Bill amounted to sixteen Florins
and two pence. I find in it some Tincture of Saffron, some Balsam,
some Powders, &>t. but there is no Opium nor Mandrake mentioned
therein. The Protestation was immediately taken off, and the Bill
paid by Mr. Vander Spyck.

The dead Body was carried to the Grave in the New Church
upon the Spuy, the 25th of February, being attended by many
Illustrious Persons and followed by six Coaches. The Burial being
over, the particular Friends or Neighbours, were treated with some
Bottles of Wine, according to the custom of the Country, in the
House where the Deceased lodged.

I shall observe by the bye, that the Barber of Spinosa brought in
after his Death, a Bill exprest in these words : " Mr Spinosa, oj
" Blessed Memory,1 owes to Abraham Kervel, for having shaved him
" the last Quarter, the summ of one Florin and eighteen Pence. The
Man, who invited his Friends to his Burial, two Ironmongers, and
the Mercer, who furnished the Mourning Gloves, made him the same
Complement in their Bills.

If they had known what were the Principles of Spinosa in point of
Religion ; 'tis likely that they would not have made use of the word
Blessed : Or perhaps they used that word according to Custom, which
permits, sometimes, the abuse of such Expressions, even with respect
to those, who die in despair, or in a final Impenitence.

Spinosa being buried, his Landlord caused the Inventory of his
Goods to be made. The Notary he made use of, brought in a Bill, in
this form : William van Hove, Notary, for having made the Inventory of
the Goods and Effects of the late Sieur Benedict de Spinosa. His
Bill amounts to seventeen Florins and eight pence, which he acknow
ledges to have received the i4th of November, 1677.

Rebekah of Spinosa, Sister of the Deceased, declared her self
his Heir. But because she refused to pay, in the first place, the
charges of the Burial, and some Debts wherewith the Succession
was clogged; Mr. Vander Spyck sent to her at Amsterdam, and
summoned her to do it, by Robert Schmedmg, who carried his Letter

1 Fr. <Mr. Spinosa de bienheureuse memoire:' in original 'Spinoza
Zaliger.'

APPENDIX. 443

of Attorny drawn up and signed by Libertus Z^the 3oth si March,
1677. But, before she paid any thing, she had a mind to know,
whether the Debts and Charges being paid, she might get something
by her Brother's Inheritance. Whilst she was deliberating about it,
Vander Spyck was authoriz'd by Law, to make a publick Sale of the
Goods in question ; which was executed ; and the Money arising
from the sale being deposited in the usual place, the Sister of Spinosa
made an Attachment of it. But perceiving that after the payment of
the Charges and Debts, there wou'd be little or nothing at all left,
she desisted from her pretentions. The Attorny, John Lukkats, who
served Vander Spyck in that Affair, brought him a Bill of thirty three
Florins and sixteen pence, for which he gave his Receipt the ist of
June, 1678. The Sale of the said Goods was made here (at the
Hague] the 4th of November, 1677, by Rykus van Stralen, a sworn
Cryer, as it appears by his Account, bearing the same Date.

One needs only cast one's Eyes upon that Account, to perceive
that it was the Inventory of a true Philosopher : It contains only
some small Books, some Cuts, some pieces of polished Glass, some
Instruments to polish them, &c.

It appears likewise, by his Cloaths, how good a Husband he was.
A Camlet Cloak, and a pair of Breeches were sold for twenty one
Florins and fourteen pence, another grey Cloak, twelve Florins
and fourteen pence, four Sheets, six Florins and eight pence,
seven Shirts, nine Florins and six pence, one Bed fiveteen Florins,
nineteen Bands, one Florin and eleven pence, five Handkerchiefs,
twelve pence, two red Curtains, a Counter-pain, and a little Blanket,
six Florins : And all his Plate, consisted of one Pair of Silver-
Buckles, which were sold, two Florins. The whole Sale of the
Goods amounted to four hundred Florins and thirteen Pence ; and
the charges of the Sale being deducted, there remained three
hundred ninety Florins and fourteen pence.

These are all the particulars I cou'd learn about the Life and
Death of Spinosa : He was forty four years, two months and twenty
seven days old, when he died; which happen'd the 2ist of
February, 1677, and he was buried the 25th of the same month.

FINIS,

444 APPENDIX.

APPENDIX B.

The following is the text of the ordinance condemning the
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. That of June 25, 1678, condemning
the Opera Posthuma, is to be found at p. 525 of the same book ; but
inasmuch as it is also reprinted in Van der Linde's ' Bibliografie,'
no. 24, it is not given here. I have not thought it needful to add a
translation.

Groot Placaet Boeck (iris Graven Hage, 1683) ^de Deel, p. 523.

Placaet van den Hove van Hollandt tegen de Sociniaensche Boecken
Leviathan en andere. In date den negenthienden July, 1674.

Wilhem Hendrick, by der gratien Codes Prince van Orange
ende Nassau, Grave van Catzenellebogen, Vianden, Diest, Lingen,

Mceurs, Buyren, Leerdam, &c Midtsgaders den President

ende Raeden over Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt : Alsoo Wy in
ervaringe komen, dat t'zedert eenigen tijdt henvaerts verscheyde
Sociniaensche ende andere schadelijcke Boecken, met den Druck zijn
gemeen gemaeckt, ende noch dagelijcx werden gedivulgeert ende
verkocht, als daer zijn de Boecken genaemt de Leviathan, Bibliotheca
Fratrum Polonorum, quos unitarios vocant, Philosophia Sacrce Scripture
interpres : als mede Tractatus Theologico Politicus, ende dat Wy naer
examinatie van den inhouden van dien bevinden, niet alleen dat de
selve renverseren de Leere van de ware Christelijcke Gereformeerde
Religie, nemaer oock overvloeyen van alle lasteringen tegens Godt,
ende syne Eygenschappen, ende des selfs aenbiddelijcke Drie
Eenigheydt, tegens de Godtheydt Jesu Christi, ende syne Ware
voldoeninge ; midtsgaders de fondamentele Hooft-Poincten van de
voorschreve Ware Christelijcke Religie, ende in effecte d'authoriteyt
van de Heylige Schrifture, t'eenemael soo veel in haer is in vilipendie,
en de swacke ende niet wel gefondeerde gemoederen in twijfelinge
trachten te brengen, alles directelijck jegens iterative Resolutien ende

APPENDIX. 445

Placaten van den Lande daer jegens ge-emaneert. Soo IST, Dat wy
tot voorkominge van dit schadelijck Vergift, ende om soo veel
mogelijck te beletten, dat daer door niemant en moge werden misleyt,
hebben geoordeelt van Onsen plicht de voorsz. Boecken te verklaren
soodanigh als voorsz. is, ende te decrieren voor Gods-lasterlijcke en
Ziel-verdeffelijcke Boecken, vol van ongefondeerde en dangereuse
stellingen en grouwelen, tot naedeel van de Ware Religie ende Ker-
chendienst. Verliedende dien-volgende als noch by desen alien ende
een yegelijcken, de selve of dier-gelijcke te Drucken, divulgeeren ofte
verkoopen, op Auctien ofte andersints, op peyne by de Placaten van
den Lande, ende specialijck dat van den negenthienden September
1653, daer toe ghestatueert : Lastende een yeder die dit aengaet,
hem daer na te reguleren, ende dat desen sal worden gepubliceert en
alomme geaffigeert, daer het behoort, ende in gelijcke saecken te
geschieden gebruyckelijck is. Gegeven onde het Zegel van Justicie
hier onder opgedruckt, op den negenthienden Julij, 1674. Onder
stondt, In kennisse van My. Was gheteeckent,

AD. POTS.

446 APPENDIX.

APPENDIX C.

Letters not contained in Spinoza! s published works.

T. Prof. Land has recently discovered that the Dutch originals of
two of Spinoza's letters to Blyenbergh were printed in an old
periodical (Boekzaal der geleerde Werreld) as long ago as 1705. One
of these (Ep. 32 in Latin version), had been lost sight of ever since.
The other (Ep. 38) had mean while been recovered by Dr. van Vloten
and printed in his Supplementum. The final paragraph of Ep. 32
was omitted in the Latin version of the Opera Posthuma, but is not
without interest, as it shows conclusively that Spinoza wrote Dutch
with difficulty and regarded it as a foreign language.1 This portion is
here reprinted from Prof. Land's paper ' Over de eerste uitgaven der
brieven van Spinoza/ Amsterdam, 1879 : —

Dit is myn Heer al wat ik nu weet by te brenge om U. E. op sijn
vraag te aantwoorde. nu wensch ik niet hooger, als dat het U. E.
mocht voldoen. doch indien U. E. noch swaarigheyt vint ; so versoek
ik dat ik die ook mach weeten, om te sien, of ik die sow konnen
wegh neemen. U. E. hoeft van sijn kant niet te schroomen, maar
so lang hem dunkt niet voldaan te syn, so heb ik niet liever als de
reeden daar van te weete, op dat eindelyk de waarheit mocht blyke.
ik wenschte wel dat ikin de taal, waar mee ik opgebrocht ben, mocht
schryven. ik sow mogelyk myn gedaghte beeter konnen uytdrukke,
doch U. E. gelieft het so voor goet te neemen, en selfs de fouten
verbeetren. en my te houwe voor

U. E. toegeneege Vrient

En Dienar

B. DE SPINOZA.

Op de Lange bogart den 5 Januari 1665.

Ik zal op dese boogart een drie a vier weeke noch blyven, en
dan meen ik weer nae voorburgh te gaan. ik geloof dal ik voor die

1 This throws great doubt on the account given by Colerus of his projected
Dutch translation of the Old Testament, p. 433, above. The same statement is
made in the ' Catalogue des ouvrages de Mr de Spinosa ' at the end of the
Life by Lucas.

APPENDIX. 447

tyt aantwoord van U E sal krygen. indien de afairen het niet toe en
laate, so gelieft U E na voorburgh te schryve, met dit opschrift, te
bestellen in de kerk laan ten huyse van meester daniel tydeman de
schilder.

Translation.

This, Sir, is all I can now contribute to answering your question,
and I have no higher wish than that it may satisfy you. But in case
you still find any difficulty, I beg you to let me know of that also, to
see if I may be able to remove it. You have nothing to fear on your
side, but so long as you are not satisfied, I like nothing better than
to be informed of your reasons, so that finally the truth may appear.
I could have wished to write in the tongue in which I have been
brought up. I should perhaps have been able to express my thoughts
better. But be pleased to take it as it is, amend the mistakes your
self, and believe me,

Your sincere Friend

and Servant

B. DE SPINOSA.

Lange Boogart (Long Orchard, Amsterdam)
the 5th January, 1665.

I shall stay here three or four weeks more, and then I think of
going back to Voorburg. I believe I shall get your answer before
that time. If business prevent it, be pleased to write to Voorburg,
addressed to be delivered in the Church lane at the house of Mr.
Daniel Tydeman, painter.

2. The following autograph letter of Spinoza is preserved in
Victor Cousin's library at the Sorbonne. It was seen in Cousin's life
time by Saisset, who gave a translation in his CEuvres de Spinoza
(2nd ed. vol iii. ad fin.) but did not publish the original or even
mention in what language it was written. The Latin text is now
printed for the first time. How the MS. came into Cousin's posses
sion is no longer known, but there is no reason to doubt its authen
ticity. Being dated as well as signed, the document seems to be the
letter actually sent, not a draft retained by Spinoza. It is written on
one leaf, 21-1x16-2 centimetres. The letter and signature closely
agree with other known specimens of Spinoza's writing, and are very
neat and clear.

The following signs are used to represent the state of the MS.
Italics denote interlineations : small capitals, writing interlined over a
complete cancellation : square brackets, that the bracketed words or
letters are cancelled by drawing a line through but remain legible.

448 APPENDIX.

Do. Ludovico Majero S.P.D. B. de Spinoza.

Amice suavissime

Praefationem, quam mihi per amicum nostrum de Vries
misisti, en tibi per eundem remitto. Pauca, ut ipse videbis, in margine
notavi. sed adhuc pauca supersunt, quse tibi per literas significare
consultius duxi. Nempe i. ubi pag. 4 [ubi] lectorem mones, qu&
ocasione ] primam partem composuerim, vellem ut simul ibi, aut ubi
placuerit, etiam moneres me earn intra duas hebdomadas compo-
suisse. hoc enim praemonito nemo putabit, haec adeo clare proponi, ut
[si] quse clarius explicari non possent, adeoque verbulo uno, aut altero,2
quod forte hie illic obscurum ofendent,3 non haerebunt. 2°. vellem
moneres me multa alio modo quam a Cartesio demonstrata sunt
demonstrate, non ut Cartesium corrigam, sed tanturn, ut meum
ordinem melius retineam, et numerum axiomatum non ita awgerem.
et hac etiam de causa multa, quae a Cartesio nuda sine ulla demon-
stratione proponuntur, demonstrate, et alia, quse cartesius [ojmissa
fecit, addere debuisse. denique enixissime te rogare volo, amice
charissime, ut ilia, quae in fine scripsisti, in ilium homunculum missa
faceres, [et] ipsaque prorsus deleres. Et quamvis ad hoc te rogan-
dum multae me moveant rationes, unam tantum reddam, vellem
enim, ut omnes sibi facile persuadere possint, haec in omnium
hominum gratiam evulgari, teque in hoc libello edendo solo veritatis
propagandae desiderio teneri, teque adeo maxime curare, ut hoc
opusculum omnibus gratum sit, hominesque ad verae philosophiae
studium benevole, atque benigne invitARE omniumque utilitati
studere. quod facile unusquisque credet, ubi neminem laedi videbit.
nee aliquid proponi, quod alicui offendiculo esse potest. quod si
tamen postea vir iste, aut alius suum malevolum animum ostendere
velit : turn ejus vitam, et mores non sine applausu depingere poteris.
peto igitur, ut eousque expectare non graveris, teque exorare sinas,
et me tibi addictissimum credas, atque

omni studio tuum

B. de Spinoza.
Voorburgi 3 augusti 1663.

1 Sic.

2 The last letter is an o altered to it or i altered to ot it is difficult to say
which : uno aut altero makes a good and classical construction : uni aiit alteri
would possibly not be wrong, but there is very little authority for the dative
governed by haereo in this sense.

3 Sic.

APPENDIX. ^

Written across on inner margin :

amicus de Vries haec secum ferre promisserat, l sed quia nescit
quando ad vos reversurus est, per alium mitto.

On the back of the leaf :

his tibi simul mitto partem scholii prop. 27. partis 2. sicut pagina
75 incipit, ut ipsum typographo tradas, et denuo imprimatur.

Hsec quse hie mitto debent necessario denuo imprimi et [quamvis]
14 vel 15 regulae addi debent, quse commode possunt intertexi.

The preface in question in this letter is that written by Meyer for
the 'Principles of Cartesian Philosophy' (see p. 29 above).
Spinoza's directions were faithfully carried out. I can offer no
definite suggestion as to who the homunculus may have been : pre
sumably it was some stubborn opponent of philosophy in general
and the new Cartesian doctrines in particular, who had already been
engaged in controversy with Meyer.

The quarrel cannot have been with Spinoza, who at that time had
published nothing.

Translation.

Dear Friend, — The preface you sent me by our friend De Vries
I now send back to you by the same hand. Some few things, as you
will see, I have marked in the margin ; but yet a few remain, which
I have judged it better to mention to you by letter. First, where on
page 4 you give the reader to know on what occasion I composed
the first part ; I would have you likewise explain there, or where you
please, that I composed it within a fortnight. For when this is
explained none will suppose the exposition to be so clear as that it
cannot be bettered, and so they will not stick at obscurities in this
and that phrase on which they may chance to stumble. Secondly, I
would have you explain that when I prove many points otherwise
than they be proved by Descartes, 'tis not to amend Descartes, but
the better to preserve my order, and not to multiply axioms over
much : and that for this same reason I prove many things which by
Descartes are barely alleged without any proof, and must needs add
other matters which Descartes let alone. Lastly, I will earnestly
beseech you, as my especial friend, to let be everything you have written
towards the end against that creature, and wholly strike it out. And
though many reasons determine me to this request, I will give but

1 Sic.
G G

450

APPENDIX.

one. I would fain have all men readily believe that these matters are
published for the common profit of the world, and that your sole
motive in bringing out the book is the love of spreading the truth ;
and that it is accordingly all your study to make the work acceptable to
all, to bid men with all courtesy to the pursuit of genuine philosophy,
and to consult their common advantage. Which every man will be
ready to think when he sees that no one is attacked, nor anything
advanced where any man can find the least offence. Notwithstand
ing, if afterwards the person you know of, or any other, be minded
to display his ill will, then you may portray his life and character,
and gain applause by it. So I ask that you will not refuse to be
patient thus far, and suffer yourself to be entreated, and believe me
wholly bounden to you, and

Yours with all affection,

B. DE SPINOZA.

Voorburg, Aug. 3, 1663.

Our friend De Vries had promised to take this with him ; but
seeing he knows not when he will return to you, I send it by another
hand.

Along with this I send you part of the scholium to prop. 27,
part 2, where page 75 begins, that you may hand it to the printer to
be reprinted.

This matter I send you must of necessity be reprinted, and 14 or
15 lines added, which may easily be inserted.

APPENDIX 451

APPENDIX D.

Circular of the Spinoza Committee.

AT the beginning of 1876 the following circular was issued in
Dutch, English, French, and German by the Committee formed in
Holland for the erection of a statue to Spinoza at the Hague.

A STATUE TO SPINOZA

The wish expressed among us a short time ago and assented to
from many sides, to see a statue of Spinoza arise at the Hague, must
find an echo in many minds as the February of 1877, the bicentenary
of his death, is drawing near. We have accordingly resolved to
combine for its realization, and to invite the co-operation of foreigners
as well as of our own countrymen.

While Germany has for many years contemplated the bronze
statue of Kant at Konigsberg, Holland should no longer be deprived
of that of Spinoza, who was born and bred on her ground, and who
breathed and thought in her atmosphere. She has honoured her
painting in Rembrandt, her poetry in Vondel, her love of liberty in
William of Orange, her naval glory in De Ruyter, her literary culture
in Erasmus, her medical science in Boerhaave, and she now seeks
to add to their bronze statues that of the philosopher, whose writings
— too long and too often misunderstood — have proved replete with
life-giving wisdom for many countries and for many times.

Unlike Kant at Konigsberg, Spinoza had no academical chair at
his disposal, nor did he draw around him a circle of private pupils,
but from his humble apartment on the Paviljoensgracht at. the Hague,
where he spent the last ten or twelve years of his short life, he com
municated the ripe productions of his mind to humanity at large.
From there he drew the attention of contemporaries and of posterity
to the nature of man's material and moral existence, and to the
conditions of his bodily and spiritual welfare. At the Hague there
fore his statue ought to find a place, by preference in sight of that

G G 2

452 APPENDIX.

house on the peaceful spot (still remembered as a canal) which by its
quiet surroundings is well worthy of the calm thinker.

We are rejoiced, though scarcely surprised, that so many -distin
guished men of science and letters in different countries have at once
expressed their willingness to join with us in the accomplishment of
this design. They have understood that Spinoza is not merely a
Dutch but also a world -wide name, and that his memory deserves to
be gratefully honoured wherever civilization extends. We confidently
leave to their care the promotion of our object in their respective
countries, and we trust that their encouraging example may stimulate
our and Spinoza's countrymen to more strenuous exertion.

We ask the support not only of the students of philosophy
who can appreciate his subtle and far-reaching thought, but also of
all those who honour that courageous striving for truth and for
intellectual liberty in which his moral greatness consists.

The Hague, January 1876.

The Spinoza-Committee:

M. D. Count VAN LIMBURG STIRUM, Honorary Chairman, The Hague.
Dr. M. F. A. G. CAMPBELL, Chairman, The Hague.
Dr. H. J. BETZ, Secretary, TJie Hague.
Dr. A. WM. JACOBSON, Treasurer, The Hague.1
Prof. J. BOSSCHA, The Hague.
Prof. J. P. N. LAND, Leiden.
Dr. A. VAN DER LINDE, Arnhem.
MART. NIJHOFF, The Hague.
Dr. A. VAN OVEN, Dordrecht.
L. PlNCOFFS, Rotterdam.
Dr. J. RUTGERS, The Hague.
Dr. T. J. STIELTJES, Rotterdam.
Prof. B. J. STOKVIS, Amsterdam.
Dr. J. VAN VLOTEN, Bloemendaal?
Dr. J. E. DE VRIJ, 77/6' Hague.

I add the Dutch text, as being the original.

EEN STANDBEELD VOOR SPINOZA.

De wensch, voor korten tijd openlijk ten onzent geuit, en al
aanstonds van verschillende zijden beaamd en toegejuicht, om eerlang
in den Haag een standbeeld voor SPINOZA te zien verrijzen, moet, bij
het naderen van den tweehonderdsten jaardag zijns overlijdens in

1 Since retired.

2 Became Treasurer on Mr. Jacobson's retirement .

APPENDIX. 453

Februari 1877, in veler gemoed te luider weerklank vinden. Dit
bracht ons tot het besluit, de handen tot zijn vervulling ineen te slaan,
en ook anderen, buiten en binnen 's land, tot krachtdadige meewerk-
ing uit te noodigen.

Ziet Duitschland reeds sedert jaren zijn KANT in brons te Kon-
ingsbergen prijken, Nederland mag den op zijn boden geboren en
getogen, en zijn dampkring ademenden en denkenden SPINOZA
niet langer derven. Zijn schilderkunst heeft het in REMBRANDT,
zijn dichtkunst in VONDEL, zijn vrijheidszin in WILLEM VAN
ORANJE, zijn zeeroem in DE RUITER, zijn geletterde beschaving
in ERASMUS, zijn medische wetenschap in BOERHAAVE gehuldigd :
het voege thans aan hunne bronzen beelden dat van den wijsgeer
toe, die voor landgenoot en vreemden van zijnen en later tijd in
zijn te lang en te vaak miskende geschriften zoo levenwekkende
wijsheid boekte.

Had hij daartoe niet— als KANT te Koningsbergen — een akade-
mischen leerstoel ter beschikking, — in den Haag, waar hij de
laatste tien of twaalf jaren van zijn kortstondig leven doorbracht,
heeft hij, van zijn kleine woonvertrek aan de Paviljoensgracht uit,
tot geen grooter of kleiner tal van scholieren, maar, in zijn rijpste
denkgewrochten, tot de gansche menschheid gesproken. Van daar
maakte hij tijdgenoot en nakomeling op aard en wezen opmerkzaam
van 's menschen stoffelijk en zedelijk bestaan, en op de voorwaarden
van zijn welstand naar lichaam en geest. In dien Haag moet dan
ook dat standbeeld, liefst in 't gezicht van dat woonvertrek, op de
sedert gedempte stille gracht een plaats vinden, door haar kalme
omgeving den kalmen rustigen denker ten voile waardig.

Het verheugt ons, al behoefde ;t ons waarlijk niet te bevreemden,
voor de verwezenlijking van dat denkbeeld al aanstonds den vollen
bijval en welkome toezegging hunner medewerking erlangd te hebben
van zooveel uitheemsche mannen van wetenschap, als zicht blijkens
him onderschreven namen, voor verschillende landen bij ons hebben
aanglesloten. SPINOZA toch is geen uitsluitend Nederlandsche, hij is
tevens een wereldgrootheid, wiens nagedachtenis door de gansche
beschaafde wereld dankbaar moet worden gevierd. Dat hebben die
mannen begrepen, en terwijl wij daarom ook vertrouwend aan hunne
zorg de bevordering van ons plan in hun verschillende woonstreken
overlaten, meenen wij te mogen verwachten, dat hun opwekkelijk
voorbeeld onze en SPINOZA'S landgenooten tot des te volvaardiger
meewerking zal aanlokken.

Wij verwachten haar niet enkel van de beoefenaars der wijsbe-

454

APPENDIX.

geerte, die SPINOZA'S vernuft en denkkracht roemen, maar van alien,
die het moedig streven naar waarheid, en het voorstaan der vrijheid
van denken eeren, waarin zijne zedelijke grootheid gelegen is.
's Gravenhage, Januari 1876.

The following persons gave their support as honorary or corre
sponding members of the Committee. In some cases local sub
committees were also formed, and in this country the London
Committee issued a somewhat abridged and modified version of the
circular.

Argentine Republic.

Dr. D. F. SARMIENTO.
Prof. H. WEYENBERGH.

Austria.

Prof. AD. BEER.
Graf CORONINI.
Dr. ED. Suss.
Dr. J. UNGER.

Batavia (Dtitch East Indies].

Dr. F. H. BAUER.

Mr. L. W. C. v. D. BERG.

Dr. P. A. BERGSMA.

P. v. DIJK.

W. P. GROENEVELDT.

Mr. T. H. DER KlNDEREN.

Belgium.

J. DE GEYTER.
Prof. J. F. HEREMANS.
Prof. F. LAURENT.
Dr. A. WILLEMS.

France.

Prof. CLAUDE BERNARD.1
Prof. M. BERTHELOT.
Prof. AD. FRANCK.
Prof. PAUL JANET.

Dr. LOUIS J. KOENIGSWARTER.

Dr. E. LITTRE.

E. REXAN.
JULES SIMON.
Prof. H. TAINE.

Germany.

Dr. BERTHOLD AUERBACH.
Prof. J. BERGMANN.
Prof. KUNO FISCHER.
Prof. H. HELMHOLTZ.
Prof. M. LAZARUS.
Prof. C. v. PRANTL.

Prof. C. SCHAARSCHMIDT.

Prof. CHR. SIGWART.
Prof. H. v. SYBEL.
Prof. ED. ZELLER.

Great Britain and Ireland.

MATTHEW ARNOLD, Esq.
Prof. A. BAIN.
Sir B. C. BRODIE, Bart.
Prof. BRYCE.

Prof. W. K. CLIFFORD.1

Prof. G. CROOM ROBERTSON.

M. E. GRANT DUFF, Esq., M.P.

T. H. FARRER, Esq.

J. FOWLER, Esq.

J. A. FROUDE, Esq.

Hon. Mr. Justice GROVE.

Prof. T. H. HUXLEY.

Prof. B. JOWETT, Master of Ballio

Coll., Oxford.
W. E. H. LECKY, Esq.

1 Since deceased.

APPENDIX.

455

G. H. LEWES, Esq.1

REV. J. P. MAHAFFY.

Sir Louis MALLET, C.B.

Rev. Prof. MARKS.

Rev. JAMES MARTINEAU.

Prof. MAX MULLER.

F. POLLOCK, Esq.

The Hon. RODEN NOEL.

Lord ARTHUR RUSSELL, M.P.

SHADWORTH H. HODGSON, Esq.

HERBERT SPENCER, Esq.

W. SPOTTISWOODE, Esq.2

J. HUTCHISON STIRLING, Esq.

JAMES SULLY, Esq.

Principal TULLOCH.

Prof. J. TYNDALL.

Italy.

Prof. A. DE GUBERNATIS.

Prof. J. MOLESCHOTT.

Prof. A. VERA.

Russia.

J. ADDENS.
Prof. W. BOLIN.
Prof. J. J. W. LAGUS.
Prof. G. TEICHMULLER.

Sweden.
Prof. S. RIBBING, Upsala.

Switzerland.
Prof. C. HEELER, Bern.

United States.
Prof. E. L. YOUMANS, New- York.

Since deceased.

President of the Royal Society.

456

APPENDIX.

w
><

PL,

INDEX.

' Sir, my friend John Baynes used to say that the man who published a book
without an index ought to be damned ten miles beyond Hell, where the Devil could
not get for stinging-nettles.'-— HENRY B. WHEATLEY : What is an Index? p. 27.

ABO

A BOAB, Isaac, de Fonseca, chief of
•**• the Amsterdam synagogue, 6

— deluded by Sabbatai Zevi, 29
Abstraction, warning of Sp. against

substituting it for reality, 140
Allen, Grant, on utility of pleasure as

such, 225

Amsterdam, foundation of Jewish set
tlement at, 3

— building and opening of syna
gogues, 4

Andala, Ruardus, his writings against

Sp., xxvii
Apparitions, Sp.'s opinion of, 59

— authorities cited for by a correspon
dent of Sp., 6 1

Aristocracy, Sp.'s ideal scheme of, 333

— his conjecture as to historical origin

of, 334
Aristotle, his doctrine of intellectual

immortality, 289
Arnold, Matthew, his essay on Tract.

Theol.-pol., xl, 404
Association, doctrine of, in Sp., 196
Atheism repudiated by Sp., 69

— characters of, in Sp's. opinion, 66

— definition of, 356

Attributes, Sp.'s definition of, 159, 163

— parallelism of, 167

— theory of, criticised by Tschirnhau-
sen, 171

Auerbach, Berthold, his translation of
Sp., xxi

— his Spinozism in literature, 397
A^ix^l^a imaginationis, 181, 185
Avenarius, Dr. Richard, on Sp. De

Deo, &c.? xxxix

BOD

Avenarius, Dr. Richard, his essay on
Sp.'s philosophical development, 91

Averroes, on ' active intellect ' and im
mortality, 290

Avicebron (Ibn-Gebirol), Jewish Neo-
Platonist ; his Fans Vitae, used and
cited by Giordano Bruno, 103

~D ACON, Francis, Lord Verulam, his
•^ belief in an art of discovery, 321

— surmised influence of, on Sp.,
126, n.

Balling, Peter, translator of ' Principia
Philosophiae, ' 56, n.

— letter of Sp. to him on omens, 57
Bayle, Pierre, his article on Sp., xxiv,

386

Ben Israel. See Manasseh ben Israel

Berkeley, George, Bishop of Cloyne,
his mention of Sp., 381

Bernis, Cardinal de, refutes Sp., 386

Blackmore, Sir Richard, his confuta
tion of Sp. , xxxi

Blunt's Dictionary of Sects, article in,
on Sp., xxxv

Blyenbergh, William van, of Dort, his

correspondence with Sp., 46
— published refutations of Sp., 56

Body and mind, identity of, and paral
lelism of phenomena, in Sp.'s system,

— correspondence of, a special case
of parallelism of Attributes in Sp. 's
system, 168

Body, the human, in a certain sense
eternal, 293

458

INDEX,

BOE

Boerhaave, Hermannus, Spinozist
against his will, 376

Bohmer, Ed., his discussion of the In
finite Modes, 1 88

Bontekoe, Dr. C., his intention of re
futing Sp., 375

Bouillier, F., on Descartes and Sp.,
xl

Boulainvilliers, Henri Comte de, his
edition of life of Sp. , xxiv

— his professed refutation of Sp., xxiv,
xxviii, 388

Boyle, Robert, his scientific corres
pondence with Sp. through Olden
burg, 28

Bresser, Dr. J., letter of Sp. to him, 24
Bril, Jacob, Hattemist, 376
Bruder, C. H., his ed. of Sp., xvii
Bruno, Giordano, his influence on Sp.,
87, 103-105

— his use of Avicebron's work, 102

— Descartes perhaps indebted to him,
105

— his mention of desio di conseivarsi,
117, n.

Burgh, Albert, probably identical with
young man mentioned by Sp. in
letter to De Vries, 24

— announces to Sp. his reception into
Roman Church, 75

Busolt, Georg, his monograph on Sp.,

xxxviii
Byron, Lord, intended to write preface

to Shelley's translation from Sp., xx

, JULIUS, his ignorance of
gunpowder evidence of magic in

Albert Burgh's opinion, 76
— his disregard of apparitions, &c.,

cited with approval by Sp., 62
Camerer, Theodor, his monograph on

Sp., xxxvii

Cartesian, Sp. never was, 30, 91
Causa proxima, as element of definition

with Sp., 147
Causa sui (Eth. part i. def. i), 159,

1 60

Cause, why not defined by Sp., 160
Causes, Final, Sp. 's attack on, 349
Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, in
vites Sp. to chair of philosophy at

Heidelberg, 34
Christ, Sp. on his office as compared

with prophets, 365
- appearances of, after resurrection,

367

DES

Chrysippus, principle of self-preserva

tion stated by, 117, n.
Clarke, Dr. Samuel, his criticism on

Sp., 384

Clifford, W. K., on causation, cited, 161
Coleridge, S. T., his appreciation and

exposition of Sp., 400
Colerus, Johannes, his life of Sp., xxii,

and App. A

Colliber, Samuel, cites Sp., xxxiii
Conatus, meaning of, in Sp.'s use, 218
Conde (Louis II. de Bourbon, Prince

de) invites Sp. to French headquar

ters at Utrecht, 36
Condillac, E. B. de, his criticism on

Sp., 386

Conservation of Energy. See Energy
Craane, Theodore, professor of medi

cine at Leyden, the circumstances of

Albert Burgh's conversion communi

cated to him, 75
Creskas, Chasdai, of Barcelona, inde

pendent Jewish philosopher; points

of resemblance to Sp. ; a determinist ;

quoted by Sp. 95, 96, 97
Cud worth, Ralph, his criticism on Sp.,

xxxi, 383
Cutfeler, Abraham, 376

"QA COSTA, Uriel, his career, ex
communication by the synagogue

of Amsterdam, and death, 8, 9
Dante, self-preserving effort of all things

mentioned in his ' De Monarchia,'

ii;,«.

Davids, T. Rhys, on Buddhism, cited,

217

Decalogue, Sp. on revelation of, 358
Definition, Sp. 's theory of, 146

— what he really meant by, 147

De la Court, Peter, mentioned by Sp.,

338

Democracy, Sp.'s definition of, 336
Descartes, Rene, handbook of his

Principles of Philosophy prepared by

Sp., 29

— the same enlarged and published
(Renati Des Cartes Principiorum
Philosophiae, etc., Amst. 1663), 30

— scientific element in Sp. mostly due
to him, 87, 1 06 sqq.

— his doctrine of motion, and its use
by Sp., no

— his conception of matter criticized
by Sp., 115

— his partial statement of First Law

INDEX.

459

DES

of Motion, and Sp.'s philosophical
extension of it, 116

— his search for truth distinguished
from Sp.'s 123

— his theory of the passions criticized
by Sp. 215

— on pineal gland, criticized by Sp.,
279

— perhaps saved Sp. from mysticism,
303

Design, the argument from, 246
Desire, Sp.'s definition of, 221
Determinism, Sp.'s doctrine of, 202

— distinguished from fatalism, 204

De Vries, Simon, pupil and friend of
Sp., 23

— his early death, and intended bounty
to Sp., 23

De Witt, John and Cornelius, their rela
tions with Sp., 30, 36

Duration, distinguished by Sp. from
measurable time, 182

, MATTHIAS, his criti-
cism on Sp., 383
Education, hint of Sp.'s view of, 304
Emotions, Sp.'s definitions of, 233,

243

— can be restrained only by stronger
emotion, 252

— only the active are good, 266
Ende or Enden, Francis Affmius van

den, Sp.'s master in Latin, 12

— his migration to France, implication
in De Rohan's conspiracy, and exe
cution, 15

Ende, Clara van den, daughter of
Francis v. d. E., m. Theodore Kerck-
krinck, 1671, said to have jilted Sp.,
but the tale improbable, 13, 14

Endowments, Sp.'s opinion of, 334

Energy, conservation of, not discover
able a priori, 113

not anticipated by Descartes or Sp.,

English law of real property, how much

more reasonable than Kabbalah,

quccre, 99
Erastianism of ' Tractatus Theologico-

politicus,' 32

Erdmann, J. E., cited, 173
Error, how distinguished from fiction

(De Int. Em.), 138
belongs to imagination, not under

standing, 144
— Sp.'s explanation of, 198

GAR

' Eternal things ' of Sp. (De Int. Em.},

what, 150
Eternity, perception of things under

form of, 153

— Sp.'s definition of, 159

— distinguished by Sp. from duration,
294, 301

— knowledge under the form of, 288,
292

— of the mind, 280 sqq.

Ethics ' of Sp., definitions of Part I.
translated, 159
- preface to Part III. translated, 214

— preface to Part IV. 245

— Appendix to Part IV. translated,
271

il, nature of, discussed by Sp. in
letters to Blyenbergh, 47, 53

— Sp.'s definition of, 251

— knowledge of, inadequate, 269
Evolution, theory of, Sp.'s relation to,

223

Explanation included by Sp. in Defi
nition, 147

Extension, as one of known Attributes,
164, 167, 171

— its relation to Thought, 175

•J7ABRICIUS, John Albert, of Leip-
* zig (1668-1736) ; his Delectus

argumentorum, etc., cited, xxx
Fabricius, John Lewis, of Schaff hausen,
1632-1697 ; professor of theology at
Heidelberg, writes official letter to

Sp., 34
Fichte, J. G., traces of Sp. in his

work, 397
Fiction, Sp.'s theory of (in De Int.

Em.), 137

— lawful use of, in science, 139
Fischer, Kuno, his account of Sp.,

xxxv

Flint, Prof. R., oh Sp., xl
Force, comparative insignificance of, in

modern physics, 82
Freedom, Sp.'s definition of, 159
Free-will, Sp. on, 205
Frohschammer, Prof. J., on Sp., xli
Froude, J. A., his essay on Sp., xxxv,

404

C""* ALTON, F., on Generic Images,
^-* 201

Garnett, R., publication by mm of
Shelley's diary, xx

460

INDEX.

GEO

Geometrical method, Sp.'s purpose in

using, 216
Geometry, non-Euclidean, bearing of,

on Sp. 's theory of Attributes, 1 74
Gersonides (Levi ben Gerson), most

Aristotelian of Jewish philosophers,

— his doctrine of immortality, 291
Geulinx, Arnold, on occasional causes,

193

Gfrorer, A., his ed. of Sp., xvii
Gibbon, Edward, alludes to Sp., xxxiv
Ginsberg, Dr. Hugo, his ed. of Sp.,

xviii
God, in what sense cause of evil, &c., 53

— human affections not to be ascribed
to, 54

— theory of knowledge and love of, in
the essay De Deo et Homine, 91

— opinions of Maimonides concern
ing, 94

— 'things immediately produced by,'
108

— Motion and Understanding called
Sons of, by Sp. (De Deo ct Homine},
109

— perfection of, how understood by
Sp., 136, 142

— Sp.'s definition of, 159

— freedom and omnipotence of, 343

— will and understanding not predic-
able of, 344

— not subject to a moral rule, 345

— summary of Sp.'s conception of, 352

— ' infinite understanding ' of, what ?
353

— love of, in self-understanding, 286

— the intellectual love of, 300

— intellectual love of. cannot be de
stroyed, 303

Goethe, J. W. von, Sp.'s influence on

him, 395
Good, the chief, Sp.'s conception of,

125

— Sp.'s definition of, 251

— distinction of, from right, 325
Government as defined by Sp., 328

— Sp. and Hobbes on origin of, 315

, 318

perfection of,

— federal, Sp. on, 334

Gratz, Dr. H., his Geschichte der Jttden
used and cited, ch. i. passim

— his_ opinion that Sp. was born in
Spain, 78, n.

— his remarks on history of Kabbalah,
97, 101

IDE

Gurdon, Brampton, Boyle lecturer, his

criticism on Sp., xxxiii, 384
Guyau, M., on Sp., xli

TIT ALLAH, H., on Sp., xxxv

J"L Hann, Dr. F. G., on Descartes

and Spinoza, xl
Harmony, pre-established, 192
Hartmann, Eduard von, his criticism

on Sp., 399

Hate, Sp. 's definition of, 226
— and derived emotions, always bad,

263
Hattem, Pontiaan van, his Spinozist

mysticism, 376
Hegel, G. W. F., his criticism on Sp.,

398
Heine, Heinrich, on Sp. and modern

theology, xl

— celebrated Sp., 397

Helvetius (J. F. Schweitzer), (1625-
1709), alchemist, his supposed pro
duction of gold, 64

Herder, J. G., his dialogues on Sp.,
393

Hobbes, Thomas, of Malmesbury,
Sp.'s master in politics, 88

— mention of, by Sp., 313

— his political system compared with
Sp.'s, 314

— agreement with Sp. as to supre
macy of State, 319

Hodgson, Shadworth H., on Causa
tion, cited, 161

' Homo Politicus ' (pseudonymous
book), 312

Howe, John, his criticism on Sp., 383

Hume, David, his ' Idea of a Perfect
Commonwealth,' 322

-ignored Sp., 382

Huxley, T. H., on Berkeley, cited, 170

Huygens, Christian, his just estimate
of the labour still awaiting scientific
discoverers, 75

TEN EZRA, his biblical criticism, 93
•*• — sometimes deliberately reticent

or obscure, ib. n.
Ibn-Gebirol. See Avicebron.
Idea, Sp.'s use of the word, 131

— ideae, 133

— ambiguous use of the word by Sp.,
196, 199

— Sp's. use of the term in relation
to the eternity of the mind, 297

INDEX.

461

IDE

Idealism, implicit, of Sp., 173, 175,

179

Ideas, some necessarily adequate, 199
Identity of person, Sp.'s remarks on,

263

Images, generic, Sp. on, 201
Imagination, distinguished from Under
standing, 144
Immortality, Peripatetic and Averroist

theories of, 290
— popular opinion of, 306
Impost eurs, Fraite des trois, xxiii
Infinite Modes, 165, 187
Infinity, Sp.'s doctrine of, 180
Innes, Alexander, professes on title-
page to criticize Sp., and does not,
xxxiv

JACOBI, F. H., his statement as to
Sp. 's clearness, 178

— his discussion of Sp. with Lessing,

391

Janet, Paul, on Sp., xli, 405
— his translation of Sp. De Deo, &c.,
xxxix

Jans, Dinah, Hattemist, 376

Jellinek, Dr. G., on Goethe and Sp.,
xli

Jesus, son of Sirach, on finality in
philosophy, 408

Jews, establishment of, in Nether
lands, 3

— their settlement recognized by law,

— their chief men at Amsterdam, 6

— censure and final excommunication
of Sp. by synagogue of Amsterdam,

— success of Sabbatai Zevi's impos
ture, 28

Joel, Dr. M., of Breslau, on Sp.'s
Jewish forerunners, xxxix

— his monographs on mediaeval Jewish
philosophy, cited, 90, 95, 97

Judah, the Believer (Don Lope de
Vera, &c.), Spanish convert to
Judaism, burnt 1644 ; his constancy
mentioned by Sp., 78

T/'ABBALAH, prevalence of, in
•*-*• Sp.'s time, 10

— question of its influence on Sp., 98

— ancient sources of, 99

— supposed allusions to, by Sp., 100

LES

Kabbalists of Sp.'s time, his opinion

of them, 99

Kalisch, Dr. M. M., on Sp., xl
Kant, Immanuel, the value of his

work, 83

— on possible subjectivity of Ding
an sick, cited, 176

— difference of his view of time and
space from Sp.s', 185

— neglected Sp., 394
Kerckkrinck, Theodore, physician, of

Amsterdam, m. Clara Maria van
den Ende, supposed a rival of Sp.,

Kirchmann, J. H. von, his translation
of Sp., xxi

— his commentary on Sp. , xxxviii
Knowledge, degrees of, enumerated by

Sp., 126

— organic limits of, 197

— degrees of (Eth. Pt. II.), 201
Knowledge, power of, towards control
ling passions, 287

— 'under the form of eternity,' 288
Kortholt, Sebastian, his notice of Sp ,

T AND, Prof. J. P. N., his republica-

tion of Dutch letters of Sp., xvii
— his monograph on Sp., xxxviii, 405
Langenhert, Caspar, on Sp., xxix
Lavater, Lewis, of Zurich, author of

(inter a/.) a book DC spectris, etc., d.

1585, cited by unknown writer toSp.,

61
Law, general nature of, 261

— Positive, 325

— duty of obeying, 328

Leenhof, Frederick van, his Spinozistic

heresy, 377
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr

von, correspondence with Sp. on

optics, 72

— recommended to Sp. by Tschirn-
hausen, 72

— visits Sp., 72

— thought an infallible scientific method
possible, 81

— his correction of Descartes' error as
to motion, 112, n.

— his note on Sp. 's ' eternal things, '
151, n.

— on pre-established harmony, 193

— his depreciation of Sp., 380
Lessing, G. E., his study of Sp., 390

INDEX.

LES

Lessing, G. E., his conversation with

Jacobi on Sp., 391
Lewes, G. H., on Sp., in Hist, of Phil.

XXXV

— advanced knowledge of Sp. in Eng
land, 404

— on Causation, cited, 161

Lewis, Sir Geo. Cornewall, on acquies
cence in established governments,
.332
Life, Mr. H. Spencer's definition of,

222

Linde, Dr. A. van der, his Bibliography

of Sp., xv
Locke, John, his slight knowledge of

Sp., 381
Lotsy, M. C., his monograph on Sp.,

xxxvii
Love, Sp.'s definition of, 226

— of God in self-understanding, 286
the intellectual, 300

Lucas, biographer of Sp., his life of Sp.,
xxiii

— his anecdote of Sp. 's equanimity, qu.
whether made up from Epictetus,
42

TVfACCALL, W., translator of Tract.
1V1 _ Pol. xx

Machiavelli, Niccolo, Sp.'s remarks on

his Prince, 332
Mahometanism, no schism in, according

to Sp., 79
Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon), Sp.'s

relation to him, 93
— philosophical doctrines in his ' More

Nebuchim, ' 94

— on immortality, 290

Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, his correc
tion of the theory of sovereignty,
320

Manasseh ben Israel, his work and
character, 6

Marranos, persecution of, and founda
tion of Jewish settlement in Nether
lands by, 2, 3

Mastricht or Maestrirht, Petrus van,
early critic of Cartesians and Sp.,

XXX

Materialist, in what sense Sp. can be

called, 169, n.
Matter, one of Sp.'s 'eternal things,'

152

— Cartesian definition of, 115
Maurice, F. D., his admiration for Sp.,

404

MUL

Maxwell, James Clerk, his criticism of

Cartesian material substance, 115
Memory, Sp.'s definition of, 196
Mendelssohn, Moses, Lessing's and

Jacobi's correspondence with, 390,

39i
Method, object and definition of, in De

Int. Em. 134
Meyer, Dr. Lewis, of Amsterdam ;

edits Sp.'s Principia Philosophiae

and Cogitata Metaphysica, 30
— present at Sp. 's death, 39
Middleton, C. S., published fragment

of Shelley's translation from Sp. , xx,

403

Milman, H. H., on Sp., xxxv
Mind, the only certain reality, 1 76

— and Matter, the gulf between them,
191

— attempts to explain correspondence,
192

— human, composite, 195
eternity of, 280 sqq.

— its knowledge of the body
' under the form of eternity,' 297

— eternity of, paired \vith capacity of
body, 303

Mode, Sp.'s definition of, 159
Modes of Substance, 164

— the Infinite, of Sp.'s system, 152,
165, 187

Monarchy, Sp. 's ideal scheme of, 333
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat,

Baron de, allusion to Sp.'s letters by,

389
Morality, essentially social in Sp.'s

view, 86

— social character of, 255

— not dependent on philosophy, 285

— Positive, what, 325

not distinctly recognized by Sp.,

326

— transcendental, 347

'More Nebuchim,' of Maimonides,

cited, 94, 101
Morteira, Saul Levi, Sp.'s reputed

teacher, 6
Moses of Cordova, passage of his

Kabbalistic commentary supposed to

be referred to by Sp., 100
Motion, Cartesian theory of, 109 sqq.

— quantity of, assumed constant by
Descartes and Sp., no

— one of Sp.'s ' eternal things,' 152
Muller, Johannes, on Sp. 's account of

the passions, 216

INDEX.

463

NAT

NATURE, state of, 261, 327
- Law of, 324
Necessity, doctrine of, its advantages,

according to Sp., 210
Neustadt (?), common friend of Sp.

and L. van Velthuysen, 71
New Christians : Jewish converts in
Spain so called, 2

— persecution of, 2

— exodus to Netherlands, 3
Nominalism of Sp., 49, 146, 151
Nourrisson, E., on Sp., xli

Novalis (F. von Hardenberg), cele
brated Sp., 397
Number, Sp.'s account of, 181

(ABJECTIVE, meaning of term in

Sp.'s time, 128, n.

Oldenburg, Henry, first secretary of
Royal Society, 25

— his correspondence with Sp. : va
liant in exhorting Sp. to publish his
works, 26

— correspondence with Sp. on the
Resurrection, etc., 366

Omens, letter of Sp. concerning, 57
Omnipotence, involves necessity ac
cording to Sp., 343

'Opera Posthuma' of Sp., their publi
cation, 40

— condemned by authority, 41
Orobio, Isaac, de Castro, Spanish -

Jewish physician : forwards letter of
Lambert van Velthuysen to Sp., 65

— anti-Spinozist 375

pAIN, Sp.'s definition of, 224

— as such, always bad ace. to Sp.,

252

Pantheism, a vague term, 355
Passions, Sp.'s theory of, 214 sqq.
Paulus, H. E. G., his ed. of Sp., xvii
Perception, no definite theory of, in

Sp., 212
Perfection, identified with reality by

Sp., 166

— Sp.'s definition of, 250
Personality of God, Sp. on, 354
Philosophy, successive schools in what

sense continuous, 120

— general aim of, according toSp., 122

— separation of, from faith by Sp., 341

— Sp.'s system of. See Spinoza
(Philosophy)

Pleasure, Sp.'s definition of, 224

SCH

Pleasure, as such, always good ace. to

Sp., 252

Polignac, Cardinal de, refutes Sp., 387
Politics, Hobbes' and Sp. 's theory of,

314, &c.

- See Spinoza (Theory of Politics).
Prophecy, Sp.'s view of, 360
Prat, J. G., his translation of Sp. in

progress, xxi.

•DAMSAY, Andrew Michael, Cheva-

lier, on Sp., xxxiii.
Rapp, Christopher, 312, n.
Read, Carveth, cited, 161
Reason, the life according to, 255

— supremacy of, in Sp.'s system, 258

— source of active emotions, 267
Rehorn, Dr. K., on Lessing and Sp , xli
Religion, what Sp. understood by it, 69

— consists in obedience, according to
Sp., 341, 368

Remonstrants, Sp. ?s life with, about the
time of his excommunication, 17, 22
Renan, Ernest, on Sp., xxxviii, 405
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Sp. on, 367
Reus y Bahamonde, E., his translation

of Tract. Theo».-pol. xxii
Revelation, private, not to be alleged

against the law, 319
- obj ect of, according to Sp., 341, 359

— nature and authority of, 360

— difficulty in ascertaining Sp.'s real
view of, 363

— to Christ, peculiar, 365
Right, natural, what, 260

— in Sp.'s sense, 324, 327

Rijcke, Theodore, notice of Sp. by, xxix
Robinson, T. Crabb, anecdote of Cole
ridge and Sp. reported by, 401

CABBATAI ZEVI, of Smyrna,
pseudo-Messiah, after deceiving
many, turned Turk, 28
Saisset, E., his translation of Sp., xxi
— on Sp., xxxviii, 404
Sarchi, Carlo, his translation of Tract.

Theol.-pol, xxii
Savigny, Fr. Carl von, cited for model

definition, 148
Schaarschmidt, Prof. C., his ed. of Sp.

DC Deo, &c., xxxix
Schelling, F. W. J. von, his criticism

on Sp"., 398
Schleiermacher, F. E. D., celebrated

Sp., 397

464

INDEX.

SCH

Schopenhauer, Arthur, his criticism on

Sp., 399

Schweitzer, J. F. See Helvetius
Science and religion, 370
Self-conservation, in what sense first

law of moral nature with Sp., 86

— as first spring of action, 216

— as foundation of virtue, 253
Serrano, Gonzales, translator of Auer-

bach's Spinoza, xxi

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, began transla
tion of Tractatus Theol.-poL, xx, 403
Sigwart, H. C. W., on Spinozism, xxxvii
Sigwart, Prof. Chr., his translation of
Sp. De Deo, &c., xxxix

— his opinion as to Sp.'s 'eternal
things' considered, 151

Society necessary to man, 259

— foundations of, 260

Sorley, W. R., on Sp. and Jewish

mediaeval philosophy, xxxix
Sovereignty, Hobbes and Sp. on, 315
Spencer, Herbert, coincidence with
Descartes in illustration of relativity
of motion, no

— his view of the test of truth com
pared with Sp.'s, 130

— on meaning of existence, 219

— his definition of life, 222

— on pleasure and pain, 224

Spijck, van der, Spinoza's landlord at

the Hague, 40, 42
Spinoza, Baruch or Benedict de : —
BIOGRAPHY :

Portraits of Sp., xxvi

His birth and parentage, I

His early studies at Amsterdam,

II
Latin learnt from Van den Ende ;

knowledge of languages, 12
Story of Spinoza's love for his

daughter, 13

Censured by synagogue, 17
Attempt on his life, 17
Excommunication, 17
Civil sentence of banishment (?),

His conduct in partition of inherit
ance, 21
Work as optician and intended

scientific writings, 21
Friendship with Simon de Vries ;

declines bequest from him, 23

— with Dr. J. Bresser, 24

— with H. Oldenburg, and cor
respondence, 25-29

Publication of the ' Principia Phi-

SPI

losophiae ' and ' Cogitata Meta-

physica,' 30 *

Publication of ' Tractatus Theolo-

gico-politicus,' 31
Declines invitation to professorship

at Heidelberg, 35
Visit to the French camp in the

invasion of 1672, and danger on

return, 36
Arrangements for publication of

Ethics broken off, 38
His last illness and death, 39
His manner of life, 41
LETTERS AND WRITINGS :
List ot works, xvi
Modern editions of, xvii
Translations of, xix
' Principia Philosophiae,' &c., pub
lished, 30
' Tractatus Theologico - politicus '

published, 31

' Opera Posthuma ' published, 40
Correspondence with Oldenburg,

25-29
— with William van Blyenbergh,

— with P. Balling, 5 7

— with unknown writer, on ghosts,
59.

— with Velthuysen through Isaac
Orobio, 65

— with Velthuysen directly, as to
publication of former letters, 71

— with Leibnitz, 72

— with Tschirnhausen, 73

— with Albert Burgh, 75

Letter to J. Jellis on alleged con
version of silver into gold, 64

The essay Of God and Man, its
date and character, how far Car
tesian, 90

Contrasts to Sp.'s later work, 91, 92
PHILOSOPHY :

Slight acquaintance with -ancient
philosophy, 64

Reconciliation of God's freedom
and moral law with necessity of
things, 67

Leading ideas :

Unity and uniformity of nature,

Monism, 86
Self-maintaining effort, 86

Relation to Jewish philosophers :
Generallyv 87

Maimonides, Ibn-Ezra, Gerson-
ides, 93

INDEX.

465

SPI

Chasdai Creskas, 95
Influence of Kabbalah denied,
98 sqq.

Relation to Giordano Bruno, 103

Adoption from Descartes of doc
trine of Conservation of Motion,
1 08 sqq.

Suggestion of modern physical
ideas in his language, 113

Criticism of Cartesian physics, 116

Does not prophesy theory of evo
lution, 117

Derivation of the principle of self-
conservation from Descartes,
117

Divergence from Cartesian dual
ism, 119

Relation of the ' De Intellects
Emendatione' to the Ethics, 121

His conception of the chief good in
De. Int. Em., 125

The degrees of knowledge, 126

The test of truth 128-9

Aims and problems of doctrine of
Method, 135

Complexity of philosophical pro
blems underrated, 140

Theory of definition, 146

' Eternal things,' 150

Endeavour to put new life into old
terms, 156

Geometrical form of exposition, 157

Choice of geometrical form, 157

Definitions of Part I. of Ethics, 159

View of causation, 160

Theory of causation, 161-

Of Attributes, 163

Modes, what, 165

Parallelism of Attributes, 167

How far idealist? 175

Infinity, time, measurable space,
181

Part II. of Ethics considered, 194
sqq.

Correspondence of human body
and mind, 194

Association of ideas and memory,
196

Determinism, 202

Nature of free-will, 208

Absence of theory of perception,

212

The passions (Part III. of Ethics} :

springs of action, 216
Definition of desire, 221
Of pleasure and pain, 224
Relation to Darwinism, 223

SPI

Treatment of compound emotions,

229

Definitions of the emotions, 233
Part IV. of Ethics : notions of

perfection and imperfection,

245, 250

Leading ethical ideas, 253
Resemblances to Stoicism, 255
Virtue founded on self-mainte
nance, 257

Its intellectual character, 258
Social grounds of morality, 259
Society and law, 260
Useful and hurtful emotions, 262
Enjoyment of life, 264
Passive and active emotions, 266
The free man, 268
Collection of maxims, 271
Part V. of Ethics, 278
Mastery of the passions, 280, 283
Power of knowledge, 287
Knowledge ' under the form of

eternity,' 288
Eternity of the mind, 292
Sp's. use of idea in relation to this

doctrine, 297

Intellectual love of God, 300
Excellence of body and mind, 303
Virtue and blessedness, 306
THEORY OF POLITICS :

Affinity to English school, 310
Views on practical legislation, 313
Theory of sovereignty and govern
ment, 316
Ecclesiastical claims against State

disallowed, 319
Scientific treatment of political

facts, 323

General ethico-legal ideas, 325
' Natural right ' and ' state of

nature, '327

Limits of government, 328
The best government, 331
Ideal monarchy, 333
Aristocracy, 333
Democracy, 336
THEOLOGY :

Necessity of God's operations, 344
Sp.'s relation to popular notions of

Deity, 346

Rejection of Final Causes, 348
Difference in conception of God

from orthodox theology, 353
The Mosaic revelation, 358
Scope of revelation, 359
Distinction of Christ from Moses

and prophets, 365

H H

466

INDEX.

SPI

The Resurrection not literally
accepted, 367

Sp.'s view of practical religion, 368
MODERN CRITICISM, ETC. :

Early attacks on Sp. in Nether
lands, 375

Influence on mystical sects in
Reformed Church, 377

Cartesians and Leibnitz, 380

England : Berkeley and English

school, 381
Theological criticism, 383

Fiance : Theologians and Ency
clopaedists, 386
Voltaire, 387
Boulainvilliers, 388

Germany : Lessing's appreciation,

391

Goethe, 395
Auerbach, 397

Modern German philosophy, 398
English revival : Coleridge, 400
Recent study in England and

France, 404
Study and commemoration in

Holland, 405
Spruyt, C. B., his critique of Dr.

Van Vloten and Sp., xxxvi
Spy Nozy, anecdote of Coleridge con
cerning, 400

State, formation and power of the, 315,
316

— supremacy of, 318

— limits of its power, 328, 330
Stewart, Dugald, on Sp., xxxiv
Stoicism, resemblance of Sp.'s ethical

doctrine to, 88, 225
Stoics, self-preservation recognized as
first impulse by, 1 1 7, «.

— materialism of, mentioned by Sp. , 140

— resemblances to Sp. in their ethics,

255

— coincidence of Sp. with, 307
Stolle, Gottlieb, his information of Sp.,

XXV

Stoupe, Col., his account of Sp., xxv
Subject and object, division of, 190
Subjective, meaning of term in Sp.'s

time, 128, n.

Substance, Sp.'s definition of, 159
Swedenborg, Emanuel, his alleged bor
rowing from Sp., 378
Sympathy, emotions induced by, 228

HTAINE, Hippolyte-Adolpl
A cordance with Sp. , 405

>lyte-Adolphe, his ac-

UNS

Teleology, difficulties of, 246

— Sp. differs from Stoics on, 255
Theology, natural, some difficulties of

248

— Sp. on. See Spinoza (Theology)
Thing, what we mean by, 219
Thought, as one of known Attributes,

164, 167
— really swallows up other Attributes,

173, 175. :79
Time, Sp.'s account of, 181

— rational knowledge independent of,
in Sp.'s view, 184

— eternity has no relation to, 294

— existence out of, an unmeaning ex
pression, 299

Toland, John, his remarks on Sp.,

385

'Tractatus Theologico-politicus,' publi
cation and effect of, 31

— Sp. attempted to stop translation

of, 33

— condemned by authority, 34

— Sp.'s position in, 341
'Tractatus Politicus,' Sp.'s, account of,

310 sqq.

Treaties, obligation of, 330
Trendelenburg, Adolf, his essays on Sp.,

xxxvii

— on Sp.'s 'eternal things,' 151

— on Causation, cited, 161
Truth, the test of, 128
Tschirnhausen (Ehrenfried Walter von)

Bohemian nobleman, worker in
science and optics, friend of Sp., 73

— borrowed largely from Sp. , 74

— metaphysical correspondence with
Sp., 74

— his correspondence with Sp. on Car
tesian physics, 1 14

— criticizes Sp.'s theory of Attributes,
171

Turbiglio, Sebastiano, his monograph
on Sp., xxxviii

T TNDERSTANDING, its distinction
^ from Imagination fundamental,

144
Uniformity of nature, leading principle

with Sp., 136, 142
Universals, Sp.'s treatment of, 201
Universe, a conception sui generis,

142

Unseen worlds, involved in Sp.'s Attri
butes, 167, 174

INDEX.

467

V, H.

W. H. See De la Court.
* Veldhuysen or Velthuysen, Dr.
Lambert van, of Utrecht ; his con
troversial letter on ' Tractatus Theo-
logico-politicus,' 65

— subsequent letter of Sp. to him on
proposed publication thereof, with
answer, 71

— enlarges and publishes his arguments
against ' Tractatus Theologico-poli-
ticus ' independently, 71

Vera, Don Lope de, y Alarcon de San
Clemente (Judah the Believer), his
conversion to Judaism and martyr
dom, 78

Virtue, essentially active, 257

— its own reward, 306

Vloten, Dr. J. van, his work on Sp.,

xxxv, 405
Voltaire, his various remarks on Sp.,

387

ZOH

Vries, Gerard de, his allusions to Sp.,

J. E., his attempt to
find Kabbalism in Sp. 98
Waeyen, J. van der, stated to criticize

Sp., xxxi

| Weidner, J. J., early critic of Sp., xxx
Willis, Dr. R., his book on Sp., xix
Witte, Henning, his notice of Sp., xxx
Women, Sp. on their political capacity,

337
Wordsworth, William, Coleridge's talk

with him about Sp., 400
- influence of Coleridge's Spinozism
on, 402

VOHAR, the Kabbalistic book so
called, a forgery, 100, ib. note

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CONTENTS OF THE VARIOUS VOLUMES

IN THE COLLECTED EDITIONS OF

MR. TENNYSON'S WORKS.

THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY EDITION,

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CONTENTS.
Vol. I.— MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Vol. IV.— IN MEMORIAM and MAUD.

II.— MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
III.— PRINCESS, AND OTHER
POEMS.

V.-IDYLLS OF THE KING.
VI.-IDYLLS OF THE KING.
VII.— DRAMAS.

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THE

Vol. I.-EARLY POEMS and ENGLISH

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AUTHORS EDITION,

IN SIX VOLUMES. Bound in cloth, 38j. 64.
CONTENTS.

Vol. IV. -THE PRINCESS and MAUD. 6s.
V.— ENOCH ARDEN and IN
MEMORIAM. 6s.

VI.-QUEEN MARY and HAROLD
7*.

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THE CA~BI~N~Ef~EDITION,

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Vol. I.-EARLY POEMS.

i Photographi
Tennyson.

CONTENTS.
Illustrated with 1 Vol. VI.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. Illus-

Portrait of Mr.

II.— ENGLISH IDYLLS, and other
POEMS. Containing an Engraving
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Aldworth.

III.— LOCKSLEY HALL, and other
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IV.— LUCRETIUS, and other POEMS.

Containing an Engraving of a Scene
in the Garden at Swainston.

V.-IDYLLS OF

an Autotype

THE KING. With
of the Bust of Mr.
Tennyson by T. Woolner, R.A.

trated with an Engraved Portrait of
' Elaine,' from a Photographic Study
by Julia M. Cameron.

VII.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. Con-
taining an Engraving of 'Arthur,'
from a Photographic Study by Julia
M. Cameron.

VIII.— THE PRINCESS. With an En
graved Frontispiece.

IX.— MAUD and ENOCH ARDEN.
With a Picture of 'Maud/ taken
from a Photographic Study by Julia
M. Cameron.

X.— IN MEMORIAM. With a Stee

Engraving of Arthur H. Hallam,

engraved from a picture in possession

of the Author, by J. C. Armytage.

XL-QUEEN MARY: a Drama. With

Frontispiece by Walter Crane.
XII.— HAROLD : a Drama. With Frontis
piece by Walter Crane.

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THE MINIATURE EDITION.

Vol. I.— POEMS.

II.— POEMS.

III.- POEMS.

IV.-IDYLLS OF THE KING.
V.-IDYLLS OF THE KING.
VI.-IDYLLS OF THE KING.

IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES.
CONTENTS.

Vol. VII.— IDYLLS OF THE KING.
VIII.— IN MEMORIAM.
IX.-PRINCESS.
X.-MAUD.
XL-ENOCH ARDEN.
XII.— QUEEN MARY.

VOL. XIII.- HAROLD.

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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

3993
P7
cop. 3

Pollock, (Sir) Frederick,
bart.

Spinoza.

Sig.Sam

SIGMUND SAMUEL UBRAJM

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